


we fall apart as it gets dark

by drowsyreaper



Series: all the good girls go to hell [1]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Bella Swan, Bella Swan with a Backbone, Black Markets, Character Development, Female Bonding, Girls with Guns, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change, a backbone hewn from her enemies, and leaves some delightful mental scares, assorted cryptids, girls night girls night girls night, magic markets, roadtrip? roadtrip!, the cullen's leave a legacy of bad choices and little else, these tags aren't very helpful, though it takes some time, violence as therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22689784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drowsyreaper/pseuds/drowsyreaper
Summary: Edward leaves. Bella falls apart. The story moves on.But where does it move to when the lovers aren't reunited? When misunderstandings are left to fester and apologies never made? The Cullen's have left ruin in their wake, sowed the seeds of destruction for a girl they meant to save. They will not be there for Bella when the consequences come to bear.The world is much bigger than one small town coven.
Series: all the good girls go to hell [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840528
Comments: 21
Kudos: 132





	1. the prologue, anyway

**Author's Note:**

> *strolls into the party a decade too late, wearing somebody else's clothes and carrying a martini glass the size of my head*
> 
> Sup, lads? Here, have a massively canon divergent fic about Bella's life if she hadn't needed to rescue Edward's dumb ass from Italy, but other things still happened and our girl had to deal with them sans help. Featuring PTSD, explosions, lots of cussing, an expanded magical and supernatural universe, and some hefty character development instead of the minimal amount Meyer gave Bella in order to meet the definition of character development but not the spirit of it. There are many nuggets of an interesting supernatural world outside of the plot Meyer gave us and I intend to abuse the hell out of them for the hell of it. Updates will be sporadic because I'm working on six other projects right now, and this is my fun, safe space to practice writing fights and angst-ridden teens.
> 
> Title taken from a Billie Eilish song because that whole album could be a soundtrack to this concept.
> 
> Last but not least: My feelings about the Twilight saga are complicated and volatile and absolutely not up for discussion. Hope you enjoy, and if you have any constructive criticism, please please please leave a comment. I'm doing a lot of new/different/weird stuff here compared to how I usually write, and I'm really interested in what hits and what misses.

I want to tell you a story.

You’ve probably heard it before, but what’s one more time, you know?

It starts like this:

Girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. With me so far? Girl discovers boy and family are immortal vampires. Not only that, they’re super nice, super supportive, super rich, and they want to share all this with the girl. Really nice story, right? And not only are they all of the above, they could, if willing, make her immortal too so that she and the boy would be in love and together, with loving parents and siblings, and fiscal and physical security forever. Girl, in the wake growing up with well-meaning but emotionally negligent parents, realizes she’s hit some kind of supernatural jackpot. Thus, believing her HEA is imminent, she pins all her need for love and security and basically her entire sense of self-worth on said boy.

Which is totally fine, they’re in love, he keeps saying things like he’ll love her forever and it will never change and she cannot grasp the depth of his love for her, so it seems like a pretty done deal, yeah?

Plot twist!

After a couple months, boy pulls an ultimate teenage boy move and decides he’s actually not all that into the girl. So he and his immortal family bounce, leaving no trace of their existence behind, so once he leaves it’ll be like she never had anyone even pretend to love her in the first place. And then after telling her this, boy leaves her stranded in the woods so he’ll get a head start running away.

Happens to everyone, right? High school romance, man. See, I knew you’d heard this story before.

What you maybe haven’t heard is what came after.

After is ugly. And complicated. And painful.

After is the nervous breakdown, and the catalepsy, and the gossip, and the unbearable weight of secrets and shame and isolation and knowing that you are terribly and utterly unlovable, even to monsters.

Okay, we’re going to skip after and go to what came next.

Next was the girls first staggering steps to trying to be human again. You could maybe make a guess or two about how well that went. There was the bad therapy (because the dad who couldn’t even get the girl a car with airbags probably couldn’t afford the best therapist), depressive episodes, acting out, passive self-harm – the girl went through them all. Even hung out with the wrong crowds, like she was in some afterschool special. Would you believe it if I told you about the gang of biker werewolves? Yeah, there was a gang of biker werewolves. It sounds way cooler than it was, and they were more wolf-themed shape shifters than proper werewolves, but “werewolves” is less of a mouthful, so.

At this point, you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this story. First it was a love story and then it was a break up story and then it was all about the mental health and now there are _wolves_ on _bikes_? _Whaaaat_?!

I hear ya. I’ll cut this bit short. It’s just set up for this other story. Sorry.

So, gonna wind things back a little, drop some exposition on ya, fill in some deets. The boy and his family are vampires. We’re all on the same page so far, yeah? Great. And like every movie ever says, there are rules about being a vampire. Not so much daylight and garlic, but definitely don’t tell people you’re a vampire. And if you do, definitely don’t leave them alive. And the boy very much did this. He left the girl alive.

(even though she didn’t feel alive for a very long time after and sometimes still doesn’t because heartbreak’s a _bitch_ )

And because the world is small and this girl has the worst luck, other vampires find her and decide “hey, this girl knows about us and that’s against the rules! Somebody needs to kill her quick and golly gee, since I’m here, I guess I’ll do it- OH NO! A WEREWOLF! With NO FULL MOON! Now I am the one who is dead avenge me” aaand scene.

Where am I going with this, that got away from me.

Okay. Let’s recap. Girl is still human, mentally fragile and emotionally Done, being hunted by any and possibly every vampire, and wolves are putting moves on her. Wait, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, that’s happening too. This girl is going _through_ it and dudes are sending her notes asking “do you like me? Yes no maybe?” It’s a whole mess.

After, like, a year of this bullshit, things come to a head. One vampire has raised an army of newborn vampires specifically to kill the girl and her biker-wolf friends. The vampire government is investigating because hey, shit’s happening, but also they’re a government so they’ve been slow and lazy about it. Girl is failing high school because would you even give a shit about finals at this point if this was your life? Would you? _Really_? I think not.

So with two immortal armies baring down on her, her only protection a bunch of volatile wolf boys (one of whom has serious issues with rejection and personal boundaries), and every other person in her life distant and convinced she’s a nut case anyway, the girl does the only sensible thing.

Fakes her death, sets fire to her dad’s house, and runs like hell.

What, this isn’t how the story goes? I guess I told you something new after all. Cool! And I don’t mind if you’re not sold on it yet. That’s fine.

This was just the prologue, anyway.


	2. the one where things go to hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response from everyone has just been. Wow?!?!?!? The comments have been wonderful and the kudos and people are bookmarking?? Thank you all so much, this fills my dark heart with joy.
> 
> Before anyone gets any farther in this story, I do want to make absolutely clear that the tags do not lie. If you're expecting the Cullen's to make an appearance, don't. While they might appear in an epilogue, this is very much Bella's journey. Expect tertiary characters to get more page time and a lot of OC's because I gotta fill this expanded magical world out somehow. I know people have feelings about OC's, so here's you're warning that they are coming and they are legion. Sorry not sorry. <3

It was cold in the church. Part of the roof had fallen in, giving way to the ravages of a midwestern winter. Snow drifts leaned against rotting pews, and ice cracked along the floor. Winter constellations looked in through the hole from their frosty abodes, trillions of miles away. It was almost beautiful. She didn’t have any patience for it.

It was taking too long, she thought. Or maybe it was just her. Anxiety stretched time into something long and frightening and full of deadly variables. _What hadn’t she planned for_? Time asked her.

 _Everything_ , she thought sourly in reply.

This wasn’t some easily distracted newborn chasing her, or a curious nomad. This was an agent of the Volturi. The Volturi who had three separate bounties on her head. And she hadn’t been able to shake him.

He’d spotted her days ago. She wasn’t positive which errand had brought them close enough to notice each other, but it had most likely been the Market. Everything else was secluded enough that she probably would’ve noticed him. That was, well, not good, but better than it could’ve been. Lots of people-shaped things went to the Market. And her scent was too jumbled these days to be immediately identifiable as human. If she had any luck, her stalker was just interested in her as a shiny new toy to show the bosses. That would mean he was wary, but not prepared. She wasn’t sure this would work if he was prepared.

If he even fell for her lure.

He’d fall for it, she assured herself. Everything else had.

Somewhere in the ruined church, something cracked. _There_ , she thought, allowing herself to feel a whisper of relief. Then, with ease borne of long practice, she went entirely still. And listened.

There were no footsteps. No more accusatory creaks and cracks. But nevertheless, she could tell there was someone else in the decaying building. Something in the air had shifted. Molecules and atoms had been displaced. She wondered idly, and not for the first time, what such awareness would be like if she were a vampire; with senses so finely attuned to the world, she could examine and articulate every aspect of, of _everything_ if she wanted to. The thought used to excite her. Now it made her feel hollow and mean and wanting.

She breathed in measured paces and slowed her heart.

Ba-dump…

Ba-dump…….

Ba-dump……......

Slowing. Pulse failing. He’d followed the smell of her blood, after all. A torn open donation bag had done the job, its contents spattered just where the floor gave out and dipped into the cellar. She heard a pop as her pursuer reached the edge; noisy grit and broken glass surrounded the hole, too much for even a vampire to avoid (unless they could fly. She hadn’t met a flying vampire yet. God, she hoped that wasn’t something she’d have to ever deal with).

But those were thoughts she’d have later. As soon as she heard the pop, before he could move, before she could feel any relief, from within the confines of a cracked safe, embedded the marble floor of the sacristy, she triggered the detonation.

Vampires, she knew, were invulnerable to a great many things. But not dragon fire grenades.

….

I feel like I should clarify that setting my dad’s house on fire was not my first choice. I mean, I did it. It wasn’t an accident. But it’s not like I woke up one day planning to burn down my childhood home, either.

I just, I want you to understand that I didn’t start this way. I wasn’t like _this_ in the beginning.

I don’t hate who I am now, by the way. I’m still alive _because_ I became this. I changed. But you lose some things, changing. Sometimes, I wonder if the things I lost were the right ones. Like, for example: these days, I’d light that fucking house up without a second thought. I might even be happy about it, if the me of back then were the me of now. But I don’t know if that’s a good thing. I think maybe it isn’t. And I don’t know if I regret it.

As for _how_ it happened at all, I can thank Victoria for that.

It was spring of my senior year of high school. Vicki dearest had been making her newborn army and giving me an ulcer for a couple of months already. The first couple of assaults were half-assed and hadn’t done much besides stress me the fuck out. By the spring, though, she had a few coherent minions under her belt, and she started sending them on errands. Mainly, to watch me. Vicki may have been putting in a ton of effort to kill me, but if she or hers lucked into an easy kill shot, that was good too. The primary goal was me dead. Everything else was contingencies and dramatics.

The pack had been growing to match, and _they_ didn’t have to deal with distractions like unquenchable blood lust, memory loss, violent mood swings, and all around super powered madness with their transitions. So suffice to say, they were a bit more on the ball.

All in all, they were surprisingly competent body guards. The pack had kept me and the community as a whole alive for months. They felt good about themselves, about their skill. Where they were, the vampires weren't. In hindsight, they were probably a little _too_ confident. But no one really knew better; they only had stories and Laurence to go on. Of the group, I was the only one with any experience being hunted by vampires or fighting them, and at the time, I’d been too distracted by panic and the excruciating pain of James’ venom to really take notes or develop any useful feedback.

Things were kind of at a standstill. Victoria had lackeys, I had wolves, and both our forces, so to speak, were theoretically powerful but mostly untested and untried.

Everything would’ve come to a head sooner or later. What was the point of having a newborn vampire army if they weren’t put to use fighting someone? And the wolves were itching to hunt them down and wipe them out before they could kill or turn anyone else. Sam and the elders had been having war councils about it with no resolution. It chaffed everyone that innocent people were being preyed on just miles away while they, one of the few beings in the world who could do anything about it, sat and defended the home turf. But were they up for the task? How far did their responsibilities stretch outside the reservation? Things were tense all around. Something had to give, and soon.

When it did, no one saw it coming.

For the record, I don’t regret it. Fighting with Jake, I mean. I didn’t at the time and I’ll probably die being pissed at him, and I’m okay with that. I wasn’t about to “repay” him for protecting me with a relationship and he was a shit for asking that of me when I was still hurting and scared and, you know, a mess. Honestly, he was a shit for asking that at all, full stop. I get that he was a dumb kid, but fuck, even Mike Newton never pulled a “hey, I stayed friends with you even after you went psycho crazy so you owe me make outs now” and he was objectively a dumbass.

Anyway, we fought. Things were said. Feelings were hurt. Hulking wolf boy disappeared into the night to sulk because, despite the obvious existence of magic in the world, his friendship was still not magical enough to cure the clinically depressed shut-in he’d fallen for. I vacillated between indignant fury at his presumption and the trivialization of our friendship, the fear that I’d been too mean to what may be the only person to ever love me again, and the agonizing possibility that something in me had irrevocably broken after Edward’s leaving and I’d never be able to love again. There was a lot of crying. The important takeaway from all this was that I didn’t have anyone near me when I was attacked. (I don’t blame the other wolves for this, by the way. Everybody thought that Jake was still with me. He’d been too busy sulking to let anyone else know there was a hole in their perimeter. While at the time I was too broken up to even think about it, had I not been, I probably would’ve naively assumed he took his sacred ancestral duty to fight leeches seriously enough to not leave me to die. Asshole.)

This is a long way to tell you about how I burned my house down. Jesus.

Also, here’s something strange and I don’t know if it’s just me or what.

When I first met the Cullen’s, I found their speed and power overwhelming. Invincible, almost. Certainly unbeatable by humans. The longer I spent around them, though, the more normal their movements seemed. Still nothing I could match, but something I could kind of…predict? No, that’s Alice’s schtick. Anticipate.

Exposure, I guess. It had gotten my perception up to speed. Enough to know where not to be when under attack. For all the good that did me. My lack of basic coordination had long rendered that a moot point – I mean, what’s the use of knowing where to be when you can’t move there without tripping over your own feet, the attackers feet, and the feet of all the ancestors you’re disappointing via humiliating death?

But there’s a cool thing about humans. We change.

Those days, I wasn’t really paying attention to my body. I mean, why would I? My body was a weak, gross, fallible thing that separated me from a man I still recklessly and relentlessly loved. It was not something I wanted to think about if I didn’t have to. I didn’t notice when I stopped being a klutz. Still not sure when it happened, honestly. Did I finally grow into my feet over the winter? Had certain neurological pathways regarding balance and spatial awareness finally formed in my still developing brain while everything else went haywire? Had my growing desire to exist only as an incorporeal sentience somehow allow me to transcend this obvious design flaw? Had God decided I was cursed enough? (Hah. No.) Who the hell knew? But suddenly, I was tripping _away_ from peril instead of into it.

Okay, no more distractions. Onto the arson!

This next part was a total gamble and could’ve easily gone wrong in a million different ways, and looking back it’s a little humiliating, but fuck it, I survived and I did it on my own without any supernatural Rat Pack coming to my rescue. Girl power, fuckers.

The first sign that the night had gone to shit in a deadly way instead of just emotional was when my window shattered inwards. Then, there was a man in my room. A man with very, very red eyes.

Adrenaline kicked in almost immediately, and as it is one hell of a brain chemical, I don’t reliably remember how things happened that night. At least, not in the right order. Or if I’ve remembered everything. This is, at best, an approximation of the night. Let’s begin.

I remember the window breaking and the sudden appearance of a vampire. I don’t know who moved first, but I do know that as he was lunging towards me, I was heading to the window. I wanted the glass shards, to cut myself on them. I was thinking about sharks – there had been a documentary recently – and about blood in the water throwing them into a frenzy. Sure, Jasper had gone straight for me, but Jasper was old, a trained hunter. A newborn could be confused or thrown off, maybe.

Luckily, oh so luckily, I was right. As I bled freely from my hands and arms, the vampire threw himself at where the blood spilled. I threw my hands along walls and furniture as stumbled out of my room, giving him a new target as soon as he’d finished with the one before.

I might’ve been heading to the phone, maybe to call Sam or Billy, to warn them. I expected to die. I was going to die and no one knew and who else might be in danger? Someone should know, so that no one else would die except me.

I didn’t _want_ to die, though, and what a change that was. I firmly and unequivocally did not want to die there. Not because of a vampire, not after crying my eyes out over yet another boy, not because of another woman’s heartbreak over her own idiot boyfriend. No thank you. Not today. That’s when I changed course to Charlie’s gun cabinet in the living room.

I wasn’t planning to shoot the vampire, even panicked I wasn’t that stupid. For one, I didn’t think guns would do anything. Second, I was a terrible shot. And third, Charlie kept his riffles locked up and his service piece was with him at all times. Had to be a model of responsibility as Chief Swan.

And as Chief Swan, he didn’t have a reliable off switch when it came to his work. Which meant that sometimes, supplies that maybe should’ve been left at the station or at least in the cruiser, made their way into the house, usually near the gun cabinet. Like emergency medical supplies. Spare gasoline canisters. And roadside flares.

My attacker reached me at the same time I’d lit a flare. With open mouth aiming for my hands, it was easy to shove it flame first into his mouth. He let go of me and stepped back. He spit out the tube, but he’d bitten into it first, so some of the powder was in his mouth. In his throat.

It was weird to watch, seeing marble skin light up red from within in hiccupping bursts. Kind of funny, too, especially the way he’d burp little flames and beat at his chest to try put out the fire. It obviously hurt, but it was the surprise of it that seemed to affect him the most. It distracted him long enough for me to splash gasoline on him. The next burp lit him up. He screamed, then collapsed. He didn’t move again.

The fire, though, moved readily. It spread across the carpet, catching on the sofa and coffee table. I hugged the first aid kit, and collapsed into Charlie’s recliner. Everything started moving very quickly, my thoughts more so. They went something like this.

There’s a vampire body burning in my living room.

The living room is also catching fire.

The body is not burning quickly.

It will probably still be here when the fire department arrives.

I can’t explain any of this in a way that won’t sound insane.

Everyone already thinks I’m insane.

I’m so _tired_.

I left the first aid kit and the still half-full gas can at the bottom of the stairs. I returned to my room, packed some clothes and grabbed all the spare cash I’d saved from work. Downstairs, the living room was completely ablaze. I grabbed the first aid kit from where I’d left it. I poured the rest of the gas around the downstairs. Before I left through the back door, I turned the stove on. In the distance, I heard sirens.

That night, I ran into the forest and never looked back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know when next chapter will be out. This whole thing is a weird mesh of planned plot but written by the seat of my pants. It's fun but also utter chaos. Also I need to do a deep dive with my original works. I've got one chapter left on This House of Bones, (One! And I've been stuck on it for months! Argh!) and I'm also co-writing a thing on Patreon that's been falling behind schedule because we've both been sick lately. So thank you thank you thank you for reading, I hope you all stick with me, I understand if you don't.


	3. girls night girls night girls night!!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's chapter features railing against the 1%, gaining valuable perspective, and women bonding through criminal mischief. Or: how rich ARE the Cullen's? and how their canonically absurd hoarding of wealth makes them greater monsters than being soulless blood suckers ever could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a chapter in these trying times. 
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments! I treasure them all, even though I don't engage because I'm a socially anxious disaster!
> 
> If you're enjoying this nonsense and have any funds to spare(ha! as if any of us have money), consider hitting up my ko-fi? I've got dental surgery next week and every little bit helps. 
> 
> www (dot) ko-fi (dot) com / drowsyreaper /

Okay, so “I ran into the forest and never looked back” sounds very dramatic, but that was just act 1 in this very long night.

Right about now, you might be asking “okay, where are the other wolves?” That’s a good question. Some were busy patrolling elsewhere. Even if they’d caught wind of what was happening at my house, it likely would’ve taken them some time to get to me. There was a heck of a lot of forest and coastland to patrol, after all. The rest were at home, being human shaped and doing human things. Jake was among them, pouting at his house, because while not impossible, sulking while a wolf is absolutely ridiculous and you will get mocked for it. And I know all this because of our saint and savior, Leah Clearwater.

I’ll admit, I didn’t know Leah very well before this. And what I did know was awkward and unpleasant. Generally, I think the gossip about both of us, combined with our respective Drama Fields dissuaded us from getting closer. I mean, what did we have to talk about with each other besides the men who wronged us?

We were fools. This would’ve been a great bonding experience. If we’d made friends with each other earlier, we would’ve been over our respective idiots ages ago. What a missed opportunity.

So going back maybe an hour, Leah was on the reservation, one of the wolves who were not busy wolfing out that night. Thus, she was around to see Jake stomp home, bipedal. Curious. She went to see him, ask if everything is okay on patrol, tried to be nice, since she’s stuck with all these idiots in her head forever. Jake is angry, won’t tell her why, won’t talk about anything. But also won’t shift and run off the feeling, which is what everyone else seems to do. Curiouser.

Leah doesn’t care. Not about wolves, not about vampires, not about tribal responsibility. She cares about her family, her dead dad, her grieving mom, her little brother ready to throw himself at any cause that will give his life meaning. She cares about her family, her cousin who stole the man she thought she’d spend her life with, about being under his control, about being unable to escape because no matter where she looks, there’s something hemming her in. No choice is good, no choice feels right. The only path for her is the one that feels less wrong.

So, instead of going back home, leaving the problems to everyone else, and trying to enjoy her night off wolf duty, she shifts. And realizes that no one is covering my neighborhood. Her thoughts make their way to the rest. Sam and Paul are closest and head that way. Leah is smaller and swift, so she runs too. They get there at nearly the same time, just as the fire starts.

The smoke obscures the scent trails but they can make out the hint of blood, the burn of vampire. Thoughts fly fast. Everyone is on high alert, looking for more vamps. There’s rage, some grief for failing to save me (weirdly gratifying). Sam wants to know where Jake is, home, Paul is running to him, ready for a fight. My blood is on their hands and it could’ve been avoided.

Leah is…calmer than she thought she’d be. Something doesn’t add up. The scent of leech is stronger than the blood. And why the fire? That’s just inviting attention and as far as Leah’s been told, secrecy is the law of the land. So she makes a circle around the house, taking one last look before the fire trucks arrives and they have to scatter. And she finds my trail leading to the trees.

\---

“Bella?”

I jumped. Another human voice was the last thing I’d expected to hear in the middle of the woods. At least, I hoped it was a human. A tall, tan girl stepped out from a copse of trees. Leah Clearwater. It was a relief – not being another vampire and all – but I was still tense. I’d been running for my life, after all.

“Hey, Leah.”

We regarded each other in silence. Emotionally damaged introverts are a bundle of laughs, yeah?

“So,” she began, tentatively extending the conversation. “Quite a party you left back there.”

“Yeah, yeah it was,” I said. And then I broke down.

I heard a panicked ‘oh shit’ and then there was an arm wrapped around my shoulder. Another oh shit and another as she saw my hands. She found my first aid kit and rifled through it. Whatever was in there apparently wasn’t good enough, because she started ripping up her own shirt and wrapping the most obvious cuts. And then we sat for a while.

When my sobbing quieted enough, she started talking. “Okay. Okay, so…. What’s the plan? You’ve gotta have a plan. Ideally, one that includes fixing your hands, because that’s gotta hurt like a bitch.”

I laughed a little, cried a lot more. We talked, I think, tried to make a plan, though I don’t remember anything specific. That part of the night was just a long slog and crying and talking and screaming. And then, Leah’d gone full wolf and I was riding on her back as she sped through the woods. She was taking me to the Cullen’s house.

It stood pale and ghoulish in the moonlight. The trees that boxed us all in gave the scene a haunted feeling, like the whole of the place was angry to be disturbed. It was spooky, is what I’m saying.

The night had thoroughly wrung me out, so all I felt was the deep ache of old wounds when we got there. Leah was a picture of efficiency. She shifted back, dressed quickly, and strode up the porch, dragging me along by the arm.

“Still stinks of leeches. Do you have a key?”

“No,” I said. I felt disoriented by the question, the place, the state of my life. “Why?”

“Just looking to save some effort,” she said, and chucked one of Esme’s plaster planters through a window.

“What the hell?” I shouted at her, utterly shocked. “You can’t do that! That’s property damage! Breaking and entering!”

Leah, who’d climbed in the window and disappeared while I ranted, opened the door for me. “See how many fucks I give.”

“What if there’s an alarm?”

“Do you know if they had one?”

“I-“ couldn’t remember.

“Besides, pretty sure your dad is going to be too worried about his house being on fire to worry about his daughter’s ex’s house being ransacked.” Leah was striding around the downstairs, flipping on light switches and pulling open drawers. I saw her pick up a stack of cash and, after a second of consideration, pocket it. “Any chance Doc Cullen brought his work home with him? Mom said he seemed like the type.”

“Upstairs. I’ll… show you where.” I was hesitant to go upstairs. All of this felt wrong. Like watching a movie and suddenly finding yourself on set, able to walk around the props and set pieces, seeing the cameras and lighting rigs. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever been there without at least one of the Cullen’s being there too.

We had to dig a little, but we found supplies in the upstairs bathrooms and Carlisle’s office. They always had tried to make themselves seem normal, even if the only human who visited was me. Tweezers, gauze, antiseptics; we settled into his office and Leah got to work on my arms. Together, we figured out butterfly stitches for the bigger lacerations.

Then we raided the house.

I still mostly fit Esme’s clothes, so I tossed what I was wearing and hit her closet hard. Leah found sturdy duffle bags in the garage, backpacks from Alice’s closet, and helped me fill them with clothes, unopened toiletries, the rest of the emergency medical supplies, and cash. Lots of cash. Apparently, the Cullen’s just kept fat stacks in random drawers around the house. Huh. I would’ve protested, wanted to, even, for the sake of my own sense of normalcy. Except every time I tried, Leah took however much money she was about to put in my bags and instead shoved it in her pockets. Eventually, she grabbed a bag for herself. Something designer.

“If they have a problem, they can come back here and clean up their own damn mess.” She waved a wad of 20’s she’d found in the back of Esme’s vanity. “This? This is hazard pay. None of us would be in this mess right now if they’d stuck around and finished their own fight. Not me. Not you. Not those poor bastards dying all up and down the coast. You don’t want to think about these freaks as monsters just for being vampires? Then think about the human cost of their bullshit.

“Dozens of people have died because they killed one psycho vamp and not the other. Even though they all knew she was his mate and that’s supposed to be important, right? They knew that, and they still left her alive. And left you alone. You. The girl her mate was murdered over. What kind of sense does that make?

“And then there’s the pack. We wouldn’t even be like this if it weren’t for them strolling back into town, bringing their bullshit with them. We all could’ve stayed people. _Normal_ fucking people. I’d still be with Sam. Emily would have a full fucking face! My dad might be _alive_ and my baby brother definitely wouldn’t be risking his life fighting _fairytales_! They _owe us this_!”

We starred at each other in shocked, angry silence. For all Jake’s vitriol about the Cullen’s, neither he nor any of the other wolves had ever laid out their case so succinctly. Had never helped me get perspective on my own situation. I needed more female friends.

Leah broke the silence. “I need a new shirt.”

“I think you’d fit Rosalie’s stuff,” I offered, and pointed her in the right direction. Leah came back a half hour later, muttering about clean laundry, but nevertheless with a new shirt. And new shorts. And several full bags of clothing. And a lot of jewelry.

“The clothing is probably all replaceable, but she might miss the jewelry.”

Leah remained remorseless in her pragmatism. “She want diamonds, she can go to Sierra Leone and dig her own damn mine. Or wait for the next geologic age to pass and she can harvest her own ancient shit for sparkles.” I laughed at that. It felt really good.

We hit the kitchen last, but it was already cleared out. Donated. To prevent waste.

The sainted Cullen’s. Always with an eye turned to help others. Spending eternity healing people. Patrons of the arts. Hunting trips to parks with overpopulation problems. Volvo’s and carpools for efficient fuel consumption. Everything treated with such care, such thought for the future. Everything except me.

I don’t think I’d ever felt truly angry before that. I’d been annoyed before. Pissed off, sure. But real, true, world-burning, soul incinerating rage. I’d never felt that before. Now, I’m never without it.

I screamed. I screamed and screamed, and then I started breaking things. Dishes, glassware – I’d already broken their dishes before, ruined my own surprise party with my own clumsiness, ha ha silly Bella – now not a single setting would survive me. They could afford to replace it. They could afford anything. Obviously.

In the living room, I put my foot through the TV. Leah helped me tip the piano, then rummaged in the garage for bolt cutters. I was cutting the piano wires, nearing middle C, and recounting every time Edward had trivialized my feelings Sam stormed in.

“What are you two doing?” he exclaimed, his brow furrowed a few degrees deeper than usual, so we knew he was really upset. Leah was cavalier. “Group therapy. Wanna join?”

“No, I- What are you wearing? And what’s in those bags?” Same looked adorably flummoxed.

“Bella and I went shopping at the Cullen’s clothing emporium. Those bags are gonna save me months of thrift trips for new clothes.” Sam looked like he’d been concussed. I cut through another wire.

“Is that bag full of cash?”

“Starting a college fund for Seth,” Leah answered easily.

I’d felt sorry for Sam then. That must’ve been a hell of a night for him, too. “…Did you two crack a safe or something?”

“Nah,” I replied, giggling with furious glee. I was a third of the way through the piano. “Just opened a desk drawer.”

Leah pulled a roll out of her cleavage and said, “found this one in a bathroom drawer, right next to some packs of toothbrushes.”

“The most sensible of hiding spots,” I said, primly.

“The most.” We laughed. I was so tired. How could I sleep with so much anger in me? I hadn’t learned yet.

Sam brought us back around to the point. “Bella,” he began, and his eyebrows made deep canyons in his face. He laid a gentle hand on top of mine. The shock of it, of a kind touch, stopped my work. “What happened? Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

I put down the bolt cutters and sat next to them. For a second time that night, I recounted the chase and my escape. The accident of the flare gun and the choice of the gas. Then he wanted to know why Jake wasn’t with me. To hear my side of the story. So I told him that too.

Leah and Sam were quiet for a minute. Then, “You punched him, right?” Leah looked at Sam expectantly. “Paul must’ve, even if you tried to stop him. Did it hurt? Did he cry? If he thinks she’s dead, he must’ve.”

Sam sighed heavily and pulled something from his back pocket. He crouched in front of me and set down a – a fang. A wolf fang. “The elders are figuring out what to do with him. If this was enough,” he waved a hand over the fang, “or if they need to do more.”

“More,” I said faintly. That was Jacob’s tooth.

“Exile,” said Sam.

“Death,” added Leah.

Sam tried to scold her, but she was unrepentant. “We’ve known the idiot his whole life. Even you have to admit that this is just the cap on a lifetime of dumb decisions.”

He had nothing to say to that. I didn’t either. Not when I was angry and agreed.

“What do you want to do, Bella?” Sam looked at me. The full force of his attention was on me, as it was on anyone he spoke to directly. I’d spoken with him often enough to know the weight of that focus. And yet this time, I finally recognized the look in his eyes. Kindness. Firm and serious and steadfast. But ultimately kind, nevertheless. No wonder Leah had trouble letting go. “I could take you to Charlie, but from the look of all this,” he gestured to the bags of supplies we’d kept near, “you have another plan.”

I did.

“Everyone thinks I’m dead. You would’ve too, if it weren’t for Leah. I think,” I swallowed thickly around the lump in my throat, “it would be better to let everyone keep thinking that. If Victoria thinks I’m dead, she’ll stop making more vampires and threatening the town.”

“And what about Charlie?”

I shrugged. “Local mans’ nutcase daughter finally snaps and self-immolates.” It was a bad joke and no one laughed. “It’s better this way. Final. I can’t come back and fuck up his life more if I’m supposed to be dead.

“Besides,” I said, pressing piano keys that made no sound. “I think I need to get away from Forks. My life’s been kind of a soap opera ever since I arrived”

“I don’t agree with this,” Sam said after a thoughtful pause. “But it’s not my choice to make. And you know your situation better than anyone else. Do you have a way out of town?”

“There’re two cars in the garage,” Leah chimed in. “And keys to go with ‘em. Think one of them would do the trick?”

\---

She couldn’t leave the city yet, no matter how much she wanted to. There were still deliveries to make and contracts to honor, to say nothing of the supplies she needed to stock up on before the next leg of her journey. Plus, leaving in a hurry would just tip off whatever Volturi goon came to see why this one never came back. So she bided her time.

She took care of her business as usual. Accumulated favors, cashed in others. Three days after the confrontation at the church, she could leave without fear. The only problem was, her car wouldn’t start.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath. Her forehead was pressed against the steering wheel as she tried to force the ignition. It was no good. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

She popped the hood and braced to get back out in the cold. There wasn’t much hope. The car was a junker and she’d ridden it hard over the last few months. Whatever was wrong was probably beyond her time and ability to fix. But she had to look anyway. Just in case.

It was still dark out. She left early whenever she could. Drive in the dark, when the roads were less cluttered; rest in the day, in populated car parks, filled with normal, everyday humans. But she’d gotten a late start. Along the horizon, she saw the sky washing out into a lighter blue ahead of the dawn. Whatever. She’d push on and catch up on any lost sleep when she got to the next safe house, three days on.

She wrapped her scarf around her head more tightly and grabbed the utility flashlight from her glove compartment, then stepped out. God, she hated winter. She knew there were southern routes, trails she could take that would keep her from ever seeing snow again. But they were under the control of different courts, different covens. She didn’t have the right connections to make any inroads there, and starting from the bottom would either starve or bore her to death. So she was stuck running the Northern routes only. For now.

Under the hood, the engine was a lumpy mass of metal that hated her. Hated her _so_ much. The feeling was mutual. Cars had personalities and this one had always been vile. But it ran well, usually, and had enough room for everything she had to haul, usually, and stealing a new one was a bigger headache than she had time for in the middle of a run. Usually.

Now she had no choice but to go shopping. After she beat the shit out of whoever’d fucked up her shitty car. The engine was toast. Pieces of it were obviously missing. And there was a letter taped under the hood. It said, simply,

“I have a proposition for you.”

She pivoted, swinging the flashlight up in a sharp, swift arc. It crumpled and ricocheted off a man’s head. She dropped it.

“Ooo, that had some good follow through!” The man was tall, muscular, and his red eyes were obvious even in the dark. He was smiling, a picture of friendliness. “Anyway, I hate to be direct like this, but I needed to talk to you before you left. You’re a hard woman to get ahold of, you know.”

She looked at him and said nothing. The smile slipped a little on one side. “You are her, aren’t you? The one they talk about at the markets. Sabel?”

“And who are you?” she asked, her tone and face as unyielding as his head.

“You may call me Garrett,” he said, and gave a short bow. “I believe we’re heading the same way.”

“And you thought, what, I’d have to join your carpool if you fucked up my ride?”

“I only did so to facilitate this conversation,” he offered in a conciliatory tone. But she was unmoved. His smile fell the rest of the way. “We’re both looking to avoid the Volturi. I have information that they are increasing their presence in the America’s and will undoubtably come here looking for their missing agent. We both stand a better chance of avoiding them if we travel together. At least for the immediate future.

“Think about it,” he said when she’d still given no answer. “I can talk to other vampires. You can talk to everyone else. And you are,” he looked at Sabel up and down, “unusually adept at handling my kind.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“A car that’s been constructed within this decade?”

“And? What’s the mileage? Is it big enough for all my stuff, because trust me, I need everything in there.” She tilted her head back towards the car, where the silhouettes of bags and crates took up every seat but the driver’s. “What route are you taking, because I’ve got places to be and if I start missing deliveries, my employers will make sure the Volturi are the least dangerous things after me.”

Garrett was taken aback by this. And by the knife he felt pressing _into his skin_. He looked down and saw a white knife _– was that bone?_ – pressing against him. It had already cut through his clothing like warm butter. When had she pulled that on him? He took a slow, careful step back.

“How about I buy you some breakfast,” he offered, “and we can hammer out the details? If we can’t come to an accord, I’ll still get you a new car. For the inconvenience.”

Sabel looked at him, considering. Then at the sky, lighter already, but bearing the signs of an overcast day. The window to leave on her terms had already passed.

“If we can’t ‘come to an accord’, one of us will be dead. Let’s go. I want pancakes.”


	4. i swear i've got a plot i've just gotta figure out how to get there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where are we going? Where have we been? Is gas station food ever edible to anyone?

Sabel would not admit how much she was enjoying this ride. Enjoying things was a luxury, and she couldn’t afford those. But she was… _satisfied_ with how quickly the road disappeared in the rear view mirror. Garrett had requisitioned (his word) a muscle car, something sleek with a beast of an engine.

It _was_ cramped, though.

Garrett had tried to persuade her to leave a box or two behind (impossible, as she’d explained repeatedly over breakfast. Everything was either en route to a customer or a tool of the trade, and thus Absolutely Necessary). Then, failing that, he’d offered to tie things to the roof of the car (Sabel offered to tie _him_ to the roof of the car, as he was both far more durable than her cargo and wouldn’t cost her anything if he came loose). A compromise was reached with Sabel driving for the first leg of the journey while Garrett sat in the passenger seat, buried under her travel kit, a couple rugs, and a box full of Unholy Hand Grenades. If he tried any vamp-ish shenanigans, he wouldn’t be walking away from it in one piece. Or even one dozen pieces.

“So, how far again until your first delivery?” he muttered through a mouthful of sigil embroidered pennants.

“Stop complaining,” Sabel commanded. “Someone could t-bone this car on your side and you’d walk away without a scratch, so don’t act like any of that stuff actually bothers you; the only thing it _might_ hurt is your view.”

“It’s not the lack of view that’s bothering me,” he replied acidly. “It’s the smells.”

“Then roll down a window. Or should I buy you an air freshener at the next gas station? What’s your pick: Strawberry? The traditional Pine? I bet you’re a Sandalwood guy.”

Garrett scoffed. “I’m fine. It’s manageable. I just want an estimate.”

Sabel pursed her lips and eyed him briefly. “We should reach the first stop tonight. Maybe an hour after sundown? That’ll get rid of a couple boxes and give you some leg room.”

“Give _you_ some leg room, you mean. I drive at night, remember? That was the deal and a very generous one if I say so myself. If you’d let me drive, we could speed along quite merrily and have your little church yard bonfire a whole half continent behind us by mid-morning.”

“Right and then have to unbury me from the passenger seat every time this gas guzzler has to refill so you don’t accidently sparkle someone to death.” They fell into silence as another mile passed beneath them. “This is stupid, I’m turning on the radio. Want me to put on the classical station? NPR? You’re old; you like that stuff, right?”

Garrett groaned dramatically into the luggage. “ _Please_ , god, put on the top 40! I’ve listened to the rest of it for decades already. Give me pop!” Sabel laughed and did so, finding a clear station with a bright beat. Then she stepped on the gas and let herself feel satisfied as the engine roared along the highway.

It was hours later, after the sun had set and the first delivery been made, that they stopped at a gas station. Night had fallen decisively, moonless and deep. Beyond the halo of the quick mart and the canopy lights, the rest of the world was as cold and remote as another planet. It put her on edge. Sabel knew from experience that this stretch of interstate passed through a suburb about 5 miles away in one direction, and then an hour’s worth of farmland in the other. But in the dark, there could’ve been anything.

Sabel shivered. It was bitterly cold at the pump. She kept her eye on the gage, watching the numbers rise and rise. She winced. She could afford this, she had to remind herself. It was budgeted into her run costs with a healthy buffer. Nevertheless, she felt the pinch acutely. Oh well. She took a deep, bracing breath and let the stinging scent of gasoline wake her up a little. It at least worked better than the coffee she’d gotten, which had been warm but useless. Nothing less than what she’d expected after such a long day. She was ready to take advantage of Garrett’s demand to drive.

And where was he, she wondered as she munched on a fist full of jerky. Garrett had disappeared into the depths of the carpark as Sabel had started refueling. His arm slung had been slung over the shoulder of a man who’d exposed himself to Sabel by the coffee station.

As if summoned, he appeared out of the dark, eyes bright red. “Are you ready to go?”

“I’m ready to sleep!”

Garrett looked surprised. Surprised and pleased. “You _do_ trust me! Wonderful!”

“I trust your ulterior motives; you need me, otherwise you wouldn’t have bothered me in the first place.” She shot him a calculating look. “And by now you know I’d be a difficult meal.”

“Fair,” he said, grinning easily. “Shall we?” he asked and slid into the drivers seat. Sabel burrowed into the passenger seat, unfurling one of the rugs over herself like a blanket. “I could turn up the heat some more.”

“And waste gas? No,” she said. “This is fine.”

They pulled out of the gas station and drove off, into the dark. They could be going anywhere….

Garrett had the radio on, but turned down to a low hum. It was barely audible over the engine. Sabel could only just catch a word here and there as she tried to settle into sleep. It should’ve been easy. The car rumbled under her, familiar like the rocking of a cradle. The comfort of another person with her in the dark. This was familiar. This was…nice. And yet she couldn’t sleep.

Garrett could tell.

“Shall I tell you a bedtime story?”

Sabel thought quietly. “Tell me…why the Volturi are coming here. Why now. After all this time.”

“Ah,” Garrett exclaimed lowly. “You like bad dreams, then.” Sabel heard him drum his fingers against the steering wheel. “Do you remember some years back, a string of murders and disappearances across the Pacific Northwest?”

“…I vaguely recall that.”

“It’s something of this decade’s tragedy. A nomad’s mate was killed by a local coven out there. I don’t know how much you know about vampire society but killing a vampire’s mate is a serious offense. Even those who don’t believe in the, the _depth_ of the bond generally respect the taboo. Retaliation is expected, even encouraged in some instances. Blood for blood so to speak. However, the coven in question had ties to the Volturi. Their leader is – or at least _was_ \- one of Aro’s favorites. So when she’d first tried to drum up support among the other nomads, no one was really interested in sticking their necks out.”

“And were you one of the hold outs? You seem like the sort to fight for a cause, mister Patriot.”

She heard the smile in his voice as he replied, “too true. I probably would’ve gone with her, if only to get the full story. But she didn’t ask me, and I didn’t hear about any of it until things had …escalated.

“I don’t know if it was a last resort or if the loss of her mate had truly driven her crazy, but she made herself a newborn army. A massive one. Dozens changed. Hundreds fed on. All in a span of months. Of course, humans started to notice. Normally, this sort of thing would bring down the Volturi in an instant. Their entire existence as a governing entity is justified by their ability to enforce the secret. If they fail at that, then what good are they?”

Sabel opened her eyes. In the dashboard light, she watched Garrett run a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Newborn armies are forbidden, unequivocally. That should’ve immediately put her on the Volturi’s shit list. But her grievance was legitimate, and the coven had by this time fled without making even the barest attempt at reparations. That might have weighed against a death sentence, commuted it to enforced service in the guard, they’ve done that sort of thing before. But that doesn’t explain why they let things build up for so long, does it? It took _months_ for her to make all those newborns. Months of disappearances and news reports that even in Italy they would’ve noticed and recognized. Why the wait?”

“Because Aro liked the coven…?”

Garrett shook his head. “That’s what you’d think, but no. Aro’s paranoia had turned on them, too. He suspected them of plotting to usurp his power, build a new axis of control on this side of the Atlantic.” He scoffed. “They were waiting to see if the newborns would wipe the coven out. They only did their jobs when it became clear Carlisle wasn’t even in the area anymore. Killed everyone who wasn’t coherent enough or talented enough to be worth anything. I think they put the nomad out of her misery.

“Ever since, Aro’s paranoia has grown, and now he sees plots and disloyalty everywhere. Ceding power is out of the question. Can’t take a break for a century and just enjoy eternity in the Mediterranean. No, now they’re clenching the fist tighter. Expanding the guard, laying down their law across the western hemisphere, keeping registers of where we are and who we change.”

“Vampire census,” Sabel muttered sleepily.

“But without the tax benefits!”

“Do you know them?” she asked before she could stop herself. “The coven that started this?”

Garrett shrugged. “A little. The coven leader, mainly.”

Sabel didn’t know what else to ask, and he didn’t seem to have anything more to say about them. “And that’s why you’re with me right now. Trying to keep ahead of them. Looking for a way to escape.”

“To resist,” Garrett said with finality. “I defended this land against one king and I’m glad to do it again. But a war is not won by one person. I’m trying to find more like-minds, other vampires, be they nomads or covens, who’re willing to take on the burden of self-governing, if only to prevent these would-be god kings from throwing their weight around here.

“I’ve had…middling luck. There are plenty who’ll fight. Few who’ll lead. Fewer still who’re fit to.”

“And now you’re looking outside the vampire community,” Sabel concluded. Then she yawned. “Which is why you were stalking the Fairy Market.”

“Precisely. The shifters, the fae, the dead, strange humans like yourself, they’re all going to be affected. Caius decimated the Were community before the survivors got smart and learned how to hide, and they’ve only gotten more thorough over the years. On the other hand, given the security of fae communities, they may have better plans for resisting and ability to rule.”

Sabel thought about it through the haze of exhaustion. “That’s quite the leap you’re making, thinking the fae courts will help you. Or have stable forms of government.”

“…that’s where I was hoping you could lend a hand.”

The weight of skepticism woke her enough to sit up straight and turn to fully face Garrett. “I _hope_ you’re not expecting _me_ to, what, get you an audience with Queen Mab? Buddy. Dude. Mister. I _move_ their _shit_ for them; that’s like me asking the _postman_ to get me into the Oval Office.”

“Now who’s making leaps,” he returned. “I just want to pick your brain a bit. You’re obviously experienced. Capable. I mean, it’s not just any human who can deal with the Fairy Market and kill a vampire like it’s a hobby. What you have to say is as interesting to me as anything else. And,” he said blithely, “if fortune should smile upon me and I _do_ get to speak with someone of importance, I’ll be prepared thanks to my travel buddy!” Garrett smiled beatifically at Sabel. “Was this a good enough bedtime story? Or are you still too awake? You could always tell me how you got so good at vampire slaying. That should be an exciting story!”

Sabel glared at him from over the top of her rug-blanket.

“Here’s the location of the next drop,” she said, and extricated an arm to slam a slip of paper on the dashboard. “Wake me if you have questions.”

Then she stuffed her mouth with the end of her scarf and forced herself into sleep.

\--

One does not simply walk into fairyland and forge an alliance….

…unless you’re Bella Swan, cryptid magnet extraordinaire. And even then, it was less ‘walking into fairyland’ and more ‘stumbling into a weird coffee house in Seattle.’ And I didn’t really make an alliance so much as I took a risk on a job posting that looked marginally less terrible than everything else.

I spent a little over a year living out of Emmett’s car and wearing Esme’s clothes, burning through the car as slowly as I could. Sometimes I’d take jobs, working under the table. I washed dishes in restaurants, organized backrooms, swept up shops; anything that kept me busy and out of sight. Other times, I’d fall apart. I’d curl up in the backseat of the truck and disappear inside myself for days at a time, waking up starving and stinking. Occasionally, it got worse.

Once, I saw Eric Yorkey on the street. I was working in northern California at the time, not close to Forks but not far either. He didn’t see me, but still, I freaked right the fuck out. Dropped what I was doing, snuck out to the truck and started driving. I don’t remember anything from the time I started driving to when I woke up in Nevada two weeks later, missing money and covered in bruises.

Stuff like that…happened a couple more times. I have scars and I don’t know where they came from. I’m scared of remembering; there’s enough awful shit in my head without keeping a full record.

If you’re sick of reading about my sorry life post-Cullen’s, well, you’re in luck, cuz by then I was pretty sick of living it. It took a few more months and a couple false starts (I went back to Phoenix once, to see my old house, and let me tell you that was a fucking mistake), but I did get some of my shit together. I dumped the truck. It wasn’t mine and would never be mine no matter how long I lived in it, and the reminder wasn’t good for me. Same went for Esme’s clothes. Thrift and a woman’s shelter helped me rebuild a wardrobe. Jeans and t-shirts. I’d never been fussy.

Finding work was harder, since I didn’t have any ID and wasn’t about to go back to Forks to grab it. I suspected I was legally dead by then. Or missing and destined for the hot seat as soon as I was found. But if you’re not picky, and you don’t ask questions, and you don’t mind being the target of some smug asshole’s superiority complex, someone’s usually willing to find something for you to do. I checked craigslist on library computers. Found odd jobs on community bulletin boards. Most of it was legal, just unpleasant or drastically underpaid. Everything else usually had giveaways somewhere that it was a scam or shady. I got pretty good at spotting cons.

But the delivery job seemed legit. I found it on a board at the aforementioned coffee shop in Modesto. A little old man and his wife, homebound but accomplished crafters, needed a driver to deliver their goods locally. He did commissioned artworks and yard ornaments. She made organic teas and balms. Okay, I was suspicious of the teas, but I thought it was a benign sort of illegal. Hippies, you know?

I didn’t question why I found the posting on that board and that board only. I didn’t question the frequency of purchases from certain local houses, or why they tipped me so well, or why some of the sculptures made me feel so fuzzy. Questions had brought me nothing but trouble, after all.

I said I’d gotten pretty good at spotting conmen and bad-faith operators, and that’s true. But my situational awareness was still shit. It wasn’t that I didn’t recognize danger. Or even that I had an inflated sense of preparedness. I was just so _used_ to being in dangerous situations that I took it for granted I’d be okay. Let’s be real, if I paid credible attention to all the red flags I encountered day to day, the only safe place would be my grave.

So that night, as I was walking back to my delightfully shitty used Honda Civic, I was not paying more than usual amount of attention. Who was gonna rob a girl dropping off tea leaves and weird home-made dream catchers?

Well, people who knew what I was really delivering would.

When I’d asked Edward a lifetime ago about other ‘monsters’ or cryptids, he’d been infuriatingly vague. There were vampires, and Jake had spilled the beans about the werewolves, so I knew those were real. But if there was anything else out there, I wasn’t going to hear about it from him. So I’d let it go. Assumed that it was one of those things I’d learn about after I was turned. What fools we all were. With my luck, it was only a matter of time before I tripped over something new.

In this case, though, the tripping was over literal trip wire, set up by asshole goblins looking to kill the messenger. The teas? Potions for glamour dependent beasties and medicine for the iron sensitive. The weird art? Wards. Magical signs to announce services, fences to keep out undesirables. Necessary goods, one and all, for non-human residents of human spaces.

Goblins are the fucking worst though. Internet trolls armed with claws, fangs, and allergic to consequences. The embodied humor of teenage boys who are living for the frat house experience, but already peaked in 8th grade. And there I was, providing a useful, dare I say vital, service. What a dweeb. Wouldn’t it be fun to kill me and feed my inner bits to that kelpie who haunted the nearby retention basin?

Luckily, very luckily, my last customer was watching from the windows. The goblins had only gotten a few hits in before a houseful of angry selkies came storming out. You look at seals and think, ‘oh, what cute little sea puppies,’ right? Wrong. They are vicious, sadistic aquatic logs, made of muscle, teeth, and spite. Icons. Nevertheless, a few hits from goblins still totaled to a concussion, three broken fingers, a fractured rib, and a stab wound above my right hip.

I lost consciousness while they were moving me. When I came to, I was stretched out on a couch, covered in bandages. A young woman, a little older than me, popped up over the back of the couch. “Oh, hey! You’re alive! That’s good, cuz the feds found Milo’s dumping grounds last week and we were scrambling for a place to put your body.”

A voice yelled from another room. “STOP TELLING PEOPLE THAT WE HIDE BODIES, THE NEIGHBORS ALREADY THINK WE’RE WEIRD,”

“Maybe stop yelling about bodies, then,” said the woman, as though that were the obvious solution. She had a friendly face, despite the body-talk, round and smiling with symmetrical vitiligo marks across her cheeks and a mass of curly hair piled on her head in a top knot. “Anyway, you’re feeling okay now? All neurons firing? Hank’s an EMT and my last girlfriend was a witch with a focus in medical magic, so I picked up a few things. Your ribs are gonna be tender for a while and you might wanna be gentle moving until the stitches in your hip are ready to come out. But we got your fingers fixed and you’re not in a coma, so your head probably isn’t shit fucked forever!”

“Sasha, why don’t you be horrible in another room,” suggested another woman who bustled into the room with a tea tray. She looked like the shorter woman, Sasha, but taller and straighter. Like someone changed the aspect ratio. Sasha stuck her tongue out at the taller, straighter doppelganger, winked at me, and disappeared behind the back of the couch.

“My name is Helen,” the woman said. She helped me sit up and handed me a glass of water and two Tylenol. “We called the Green Witches and let them know what happened to you; they said not to worry about the rest of the orders. May I check your injuries?” she asked and gestured to my torso. “Um, they didn’t tell us your name and you weren’t really _with it_ when we asked you earlier. It sounded like Sabel? Isabel?”

“Bella,” I answered out of habit. But Sabel struck an odd chord in me, and the next time someone asked me for a name, it came easily to my lips. It’s not like I’d been happy as Bella. But that’s skipping ahead.

Helen prodded at my wounds gently, then had me flex the once broken fingers. I felt the beginning rumblings of panic as I saw the damage to myself. It was bad. But even more disturbing, everything was at least halfway to healed.

“How long was I out?”

“An hour? Hour and a half?” Helen said, looking at a wall clock for confirmation and nodded. “We could’ve just gotten you fixed and on your way if _someone_ ,” she raised her voice so it carried through the house, “hadn’t cheated on her girlfriend and gotten us on the outs with all the local witches.”

“Sorry!” Sasha shouted from somewhere out of sight.

“This wouldn’t have even happened if you weren’t such a nympho! You’re the whole reason we have to order from the Green Witches in the first place! Do you know how much they cost, Sasha? That could’ve been Thai take-out money!”

“… do you want me to order some Thai right now? Does Bella like Thai food? I mean, she got beat up by our shitty neighbors, feeding her is part of the aftercare package, right?”

Helen kept yelling. “I’ve got another year of postgrad work in this city, Sasha! A whole extra year of being shunned by the community! Because of you!”

“Um, I’ve never had Thai food,” I cut in. I wasn’t hungry, but my head felt weird and I really wanted them to stop yelling. That seemed to do the trick, though. Helen looked at me in surprise and Sasha appeared in a doorway I hadn’t noticed before, wearing a nearly identical expression. Helen rallied first.

Pointing an imperious finger at Sasha, she ordered, “Grab the menus.”

“Woo! Milo, we’re getting Thai tonight; wake up Hank!”

That night, over green curry shared with a house full of shifter grad students, I began my education about the world outside Forks. The world under of everything I knew. The world the Cullen’s hid from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no, I wrote some OC's and fell in love.
> 
> I'm not suuuper happy with this chapter, but I'm also sick of looking at it. The Sacramento Selkie Squad gave me a last minute burst of joy. They own my whole heart and I did not anticipate it. I had absolutely no plans to see them again in this story or any other, but now I think I have to do more with them. Perhaps an epilogue/one shot cameo?
> 
> This chapter was finished with assistance from Mumford and Sons' "Wilder Minds" and Bastille's "Doom Days".


	5. a festival of oc's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The number of vampires in this chapter? Zero. The number of ladies stuck dealing with the poor decisions of others? Rising to two.

My name was Isabella Marie Swan. What an elegant person that sounds like! What a hellish mouthful to live with! Bella was better, shorter, but still pretentious. “Beautiful.” My parent’s hope for me, I guess; everyone wants a beautiful daughter. But it was a lie. And if anyone thought I _was_ beautiful it was because they’d bought into it. The truth was, I was a wretched, gutted, hungry thing. I always had been. Now I was worse.

People don’t want to think about themselves, I’ve noticed. They want simple answers and clear dichotomies. Good and bad, kind and selfish, beautiful and ugly. If you’re one, you can’t possibly be the other. But I’ve had a lot of time where the only thing I could think about was me. Me, me, me. And I realized that people are multiplicities. We are confusing, frustrating contradictions. We’re fucking headaches. For example: I’d fallen in love with a monster and come to hate him for how human he was. How dare he love me when I was so broken and awful and then throw me away. I’d never hidden what I was, never claimed to be any great prize. How dare he give me a taste of love and then take it away when all I’d done was exist. Fucking asshole.

Anyway.

I couldn’t be Bella anymore. Isabella was right out. Swan was, ugh, Swan was a cosmic joke, and I hadn’t used it in years. The selkies had heard me mangle my own name – Sabel or Sable – and that felt as fitting as anything else. A random collection of letters and syllables that I responded to positively. Spelled one way, it was a furry, weasel thing from Russia. Spelled another, it was a type of blade. Nothing that was beautiful; just things that could be described at best as useful.

I asked Helen and the others to just call me Sabel from then on. Did the same when I got back to the Green Witches, my little mom and pop employers. Turned out to be the right idea. When you’re dealing with fey, it’s best not to use real names. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Green Witches were pretty cool. They apologized for not warning me about the occupational hazards and explained that they hadn’t been sure how much or how little I knew when they hired me, but assumed that, since I’d been able to find their job posting in the first place, I was probably competent. It was an oversight they promised not to make again. As it stood, once I’d been officially introduced to the wider, wilder world, they were pretty happy to fill me in on anything I asked. It was nice. Very informative. And a little unnerving. I kept expecting the bottom to drop out, to have conversations cut off and questions rebuffed. But anything I asked, they answered. Knowledge was a tool, a weapon, a peacemaker, and when you dealt with magic, you were always playing for the highest stakes.

A few things I learned:

-humans could have magic,

-humans could also _not_ have magic but still be better suited to magical communities (guess which kind of human I was?),

-humans often found themselves on the bottom of the societal totem pole if they weren’t smart about what kind of human they were. And a host of other things. But that was a start.

The Green Witches, by their own admission, weren’t always smart. But they _were_ usually clever. In their youth, they’d carved themselves a place in the community that kept them out of the line of fire and in good standing with most of the local heavy hitters. They didn’t have a lot of power in the traditional sense, but they had reputation. And sometimes, they explained, that was better.

That reputation protected me some - goblin assault not withstanding – and gave me a foot in the door to better learn how to defend myself. Turns out I had some unhelpful ideas about strength. I didn’t need to become strong, necessarily, so long as I knew where I was weak. That was the trick for me. Oh, there were tricks for anybody to take out anything, and anyone could learn them, but only if they were willing to learn about themselves in the process. The tricks were customized, so to speak.

For example, I could (and did) take out a vampire. But I couldn’t do it through strength. I could outwit a fey. But not by trying to be _more_ clever. I could ensnare a dragon, if I spent a few years on a series of ridiculous quests the gather the tools and skillsets needed to first find a dragon and then survive reaching it. I’m getting off topic.

Work in the blind spots. I was a short woman with slightly above average intelligence (on a good day) and physical frailty typical of my species. And I probably didn’t have magic. I was at a disadvantage in almost every way. And everyone knew that. They _knew_ I couldn’t win. So most of the time, for most of the things I’d come up against, they wouldn’t even bother to be on guard. If I didn’t _try_ to keep up, they wouldn’t even notice when I outstripped them.

I already knew how weak I was.

“The world is full of magic,” Granny Green would say. “It makes things beautiful. And it makes them dangerous. It’s like the whole world’s on LSD, sweetie. Colors are brighter, shadows are deeper. Love is sharper and hate more burning. You’ve got to be on guard against everything, because everything is out to get you. Just like real life! The only difference really is that the magic is honest about it.”

“The things that want to use you and hurt you, they’re always gonna be looking for a weakness first thing. On the other hand,” Granpappy Green mused, “you’re human, so they’re not always gonna look too hard. They may just see the most obvious ones – you’re small, you’re soft, - and figure that’s all they need to know. Now if you were to have something really, obviously wrong with ya, like a limp or something bandaged, they may take special note of that and stop looking. Assume they know the rest. May not catch that you’re fast with your hand, or that you’ve been watching them, or what you’ve got in your pockets. May think it’s a cell phone when it’s really a shank.”

Being a delivery driver for a literal cottage industry doesn’t normally get you a reputation. But I lasted a couple years with them, and goblins weren’t the only danger to wayward travelers. I got to be a familiar face around the area, and some folks started paying me for their own delivery gigs, too. It’s not like I didn’t need the money. And the Green’s didn’t have that many deliveries most of the time. Over time, I drove the length of California, southeast past Tucson and into Montana to the north. I didn’t go to Washington; I didn’t trust myself to leave well enough alone.

The longer routes tested me. Without the unspoken protection of the Green Witches, I had to get better at handling myself. It was a big world, full of secrets, after all. And as it turned out, I wasn’t half bad at tripping over them. Survivalist bear-shifters carved Jake’s tooth into a knife for me as their payment. Some wild fey in LA set me up with dragon fire and other anti-vamp tools, and taught me how to get more. The Selkies and an anarchist outside of Reno taught me DIY chemical warfare (Sasha’s taste in sexual partners seemed all over the place _until_ you realized that any of them could, if so inclined, commit mass murder via their magic and/or items found at the local dollar store at any given moment.).

Even without monsters and magic, the world is just _weird_. Time gets stretchy on long roads, and some _places_ just aren’t good to be in alone, for no other reason than the dirt and the air hate you. Hate you _so_ much. People who know _notice_ when you can make those runs and come back, body and mind intact. I don’t know if it takes magic, but it certainly takes _something_ that’s in short supply.

I was approached in Las Vegas the first time. They looked like typical fey gentry – tall, slim, prettier than a vampire and twice as unnerving. Genderless like a young David Bowie, and sensual in a way that went from titillating to annoying as soon as they opened their mouths. The job offer seemed straightforward. I’d keep doing what I was doing with the Greens, just on a larger scale and for a different boss. I turned it down, then. I liked the Green Witches and my routine. I wasn’t ready to change again.

Except when I got back, the decision had been made for me.

In all my questioning, I’d never asked what happened to the delivery person before me. I should have. But looking to the future was something I’d forgotten how to do. And the past was too full of my own mistakes to make room for the misdeeds of others. The Green Witches were nice about it – they were nice about everything – but nevertheless, they were in on the deal.

I had two options. 1) become a dealer and driver for the Court of Deep Movement, being under their protection for the rest of my life, but also under their thumb. Or 2) decline and see how long I’d last in the wilds with the Court and their allies turned against me.

Given that I was a broken, half feral, delivery wraith, held together by a sense of usefulness and spite, I went with option 3.

It wasn’t easy going solo, but I had means. A duffle bag full of the remaining Cullen’s cash and what I’d saved from work. The reputation I’d built freelancing, totally separate from the Greens. All those people I’d met over the years and miles who’d bartered knowledge and tools for my services? The Green Witches didn’t know what I knew. The Court could hunt me, but I wouldn’t make it easy for them. And while a fey grudge was no small thing, it was a big world out there, and the fey didn’t run all of it. They didn’t even run much of the land they lived on. The hardest part was how it made me feel about the Green Witches. Knowing that they’d planned this from the start. All their kindness, all the comfort I started to feel was dust and ash. None of it had been real. Not ever. They were just another set of people who kept me around until they were tired of me.

At least this time, I got to see their faces fall while I told them to fuck off.

As I drove off, I couldn’t help but think it was my fault. Regardless of how long the Green Witches had been running their game, of how many years it had preceded me, I was a common denominator in People Being Really Shitty. Bad people found their way to me somehow, and for some reason I chose to care about them.

I couldn’t keep bad people away. I didn’t know how to even start. There were too many of them. Maybe all of them. Maybe every single person was bad, and just waiting for a chance to hurt me. I couldn’t beat those odds. But I could stop caring about them. I could stop caring about anyone, _everyone_ , ever again.

It was actually pretty easy.

…

Zephyr McDaniel was pretty lucky, she thought. She’d seen other changelings, kept small and cute and stupid for the gentry to play with. Until suddenly the gentry got bored with them and set them loose in a mortal world that had moved beyond them. It was ugly business and Zephyr was always grateful to have been spared.

Crouch had noticed her gifts early and separated her from the herd. All changeling children were a little touched by magic, but Zephyr had been better, brighter: Crouch thought she deserved to shine. The bogey had taught her to read and write and add. Read her all the stories and histories that made up their world. Made sure she knew how to fight and how to negotiate and how to run when both failed. Taught her _magic_. 

Zephyr didn’t know how she could’ve ever lived in a world without magic. She must have at some point, right? Her parents had been human, whoever they were. But she’d been a baby then. Did that count as living? Or had she just existed? Her memories of Before were pale, fuzzy things, and she didn’t really believe them. Were they real memories, or just constructs made to fill the empty space? Either way, they certainly didn’t tell her anything useful, like ‘had light always clung to her like morning mist?’ ‘Had she always woken in the dark, with sunlight glowing under her skin?’ ‘Had sunset always hidden in her curls or braids and burst free at evening meals like fireworks?’ She didn’t know. And Crouch, on the days she felt brave enough to ask him, wouldn’t answer.

But still, he was okay. He’d let her age…mostly on schedule. He’d taught her when he didn’t have to, and made sure she was known to be under his protection by the court and wild fey. She learned all that she needed and more. She kept her magic close and warm and bright. She kept _everyone_ she met as close as she could, until no one could harm her without bumping elbows with someone who’d retaliate.

And now, she was branching out! With Crouch’s blessings and everything! She had a human apartment in the neutral zone, so she could trade and advise and, hell, throw parties without anyone getting in a snit. Gentry and witches and cryptids and the human friends she was collecting from all the college classes she kept crashing; they all came to her place to watch sit-coms and drink silver cider and dream. Zephyr was thriving!

Which was what made these encounters so awkward.

She was making her way home after a long morning of classes and relaying messages. The sidewalks were slippery from the last snow storm, and the wind off the river was cutting through her best winter coat and a sunspot spell. She was eager for a hot bath, a bed, and Netflix, surrounded by four solid, draft-free walls. Except.

Butterscotch was waiting for her in the lobby of her apartment building. He was leaning against the wall that hid the elevator banks, tall and still and familiar. Only he wasn’t Butterscotch anymore. Zephyr always had to remind herself of that. Butterscotch had been the oldest of the changeling children when she was young, and he’d reigned over them all in a benevolent sort of tyranny. Everyone had loved him. Golden, glorious Butterscotch.

But that wasn’t who waited for her now. The man in the lobby was Richard, with his butter-blonde hair cropped close and his clothes straight-lined and colorless, and his lips pressed flat in disapproval at the world. There were even more lines on his face since the last time she’d seen him. A touch of grey bloomed at his temples. A look in his eyes that grew steelier with each passing year. No, he hadn’t been Butterscotch for a long time.

“Have I caught you at a bad time?” He said the words more than asked them. It was a formality. The pretense of civility before an uncivil topic. Richard was a Stolen Child, Returned, while Zephyr was Stolen Still. It would always be a bad time for them to talk.

But Zephyr was a people person, so she smiled and said, “Not at all! You know I’ve always got time for another Change-y. Care for a drink?” She thumbed at the vending machines humming in the corner. The lobby was cramped and dark (who thought dark red walls were a good idea in such a small space? Seriously!) and her hospitality offering were much better up in her apartment. But Zephyr was very against having Richard anywhere near where she slept.

He flinched at the sight of the sugary drinks, the most emotion she'd seen on his face in years, and said, “No. Thank you.” He paused and Zephyr marveled at how still he was. There’d been a time when he only went still in sleep. Now, he could’ve been a statue in the park. “I won’t take up too much of your time. I just wanted to know if you’d given any thought to my…proposal.”

Of course. _That_. Zephyr felt her stomach drop to her knees.

“I have.” She fidgeted, wriggling her fingers and feeling some of the light from the bulbs buzzing overhead slip in between them. She spoke slowly. “I understand where you’re coming from. What they do to us… it’s not right. But I…” she held up her cupped hand, the light curled up in her palm, all small and fuzzy like a field mouse. “I’m not like the rest of you either. The world you guys want to make doesn’t have room for people like me. So I can’t- I’m not ready to-“ Her thoughts frayed before she could finish them. Why was this so _hard_? It was easy to make a case when she was doing it for _other_ people!

Richard held up a hand to stop her stuttering. His face was firm. Blank. She couldn’t read him anymore, she acknowledged with quiet dismay. Couldn’t tell what he was thinking, what he’d tell the others about her.

“You need more time,” he said at last. “I understand. They’ve given you a better life than most of us.” Zephyr felt twin stings of shame and fury; she had _worked_ for her life, dammit!

(but it still wasn’t her own)

“You’re a good person, Zeph. I know you’ll make the right choice.” He pushed away from the wall and stepped closely, carefully around her. She could feel the heat roll off him, but nothing else. But as he reached the door, Richard turned to offer one last word. “Don’t linger too long, though. Wouldn’t want to be caught on the wrong side of the war.”

With that, he slipped back out into the world, a column of black cloth amid the white melting snow. Zephyr watched him go and felt like the light had gone out with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay getting this one out! since the last update, my job figured out how to telecommute, so i've been back at Real Work and s t r e s s e d. then i had to trash some of the story/character ideas going forward because i realized i hadn't actually thought some of it out and in practice it was coming across as actually kind of racist and what the heck, brain? anyway, i hope everybody's having a good time with my nonsense and staying safe irl. see you next time!


	6. world building, the chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sabel and Garrett are on the job, and Garrett is beginning to realize that he is very much out of his depth. Sabel is better liked than she thinks she is. No one tell her, it's gonna be a surprise.

“I must confess, when you said we’d be going to a fairy market, I imagined something a little more…magical.”

Garrett leaned against the car, looking positively Byronic, posed against the setting sun. He surveyed their surroundings with disappointment. Sabel understood the feeling. The stubby 5-story hotel they were at positively loomed over the interstate and surrounding grassland. Gas stations and fast food franchises grew up in its shadow and littered the road on either side of the overpass. But beyond them? Nothing but trees and fields. The air smelled of asphalt and gasoline. Breeze carried heavy scent of deep-fryers and dirt across the road. And there was the _cold_. It _smelled_ _cold_.

Sabel clenched her jaw against a surge of unhappiness. When she was young, she’d wanted to see the world. It hadn’t been a powerful want; she hadn’t collected post cards and planned fantasy trips. She’d just spent so long reading about far off places that wanting to see them felt like the obvious next step. Now she was ruined by experience. The truth was that most of the world was dead air and dead fields, overrun with the bastard spawn of a dozen mindless corporations. The world wasn’t a vampire, like the song said. The world was a body farm: the corpses laid out in a thousand different contortions, dead from a million different diseases. But ultimately, they were all just forgotten broken bodies. The most interesting thing about this one was the line of slender white windmills dotting the horizon. That would make a pretty postcard.

Either way, it was not the sort of place that magic should be. Except it was.

“It’s not a fairy market,” Sabel grunted, unearthing crates and boxes from the backseat and loading them onto a dolly. “This is run by the Unaffiliated. No fey politics and different rules for admission. For example, if this _were_ a fairy market, neither of us would be able to get in unless we were up for sale. Or special guests of the local regent. Now take this,” she hefted a worn out suitcase into his arms, “and take it over to the green ’68 bug. Be sweet. Make sure they sign the delivery receipt. If you _can_ get a tip out of them, make sure it’s legal tender before you let them out of your sight.”

Garrett gave her an appraising look. “Well now I have _more_ questions.”

“And I have a schedule. Guess which takes priority?”

Garrett huffed but went off in mostly good humor. With her vampire temporarily sorted, Sabel scanned the parking lot. It was full of merchants and couriers like herself, all hurrying to get inside and set up. She recognized most of them. Unaffiliated markets attracted a semi-reliable crowd, which made this first part of her job easier. At any given time, about a third of what she carried was on its way to a merchant, and markets made easy meeting grounds.

Of course, markets in general were the bread and butter of couriers like Sabel. Besides maintaining the supply chain for vendors, they shared customers. ‘Guests’ of the market often bought more than they could transport on their own, and wasn’t it convenient that there was a flock of delivery boys and girls ready to cart their shit wherever they wanted. Some couriers could and did make their entire living off of the markets. Sabel wasn’t quite that reliant, preferring to grow her business on word of mouth more than anything else. But the markets were still important. Go to one, impress the merchants, make connections with their customers, grow your delivery networks. To say nothing of the social aspect. Drivers met at markets and shared news about routes, regime changes, and safety tips. Merchants and other workers fore the event had the hot gossip about their customers and their allies. Sabel had a full night planned, herself, and only part of it involved making sure her customers picked up their shit.

But unloading for the merchants came first.

Most of them came to her. She’d sent Garrett after her only known trouble-customers of the evening. And truthfully, she felt fairly vindicated when, well after she’d made her last delivery, he was still lingering at the Volkswagen. A stack of ‘market pick-ups’ was resting on the dolly, and the rest sat at her feet. By the time night had fallen in force, all that remained in the car was either hers, or would be delivered later on her route. And speaking of the car….

She was talking to another driver about trading the muscle car for something roomier when Garrett wandered back. He looked unnerved and there was a stack of crumpled ones and fives in his hand.

“What just happened? What did I do? Who were they?”

Sabel looked at his open palm, poking the contents with a finger. “Most of this looks legit. Got the receipt? Ah, I see it. Good job. There’s even enough here to get some nachos later.”

He looked at her like she’d sprouted horns. “Again. _What_ just _happened_?”

The other driver, a changeling called Ollie who Sabel got along with, laughed. “The Baldwin sisters, yeah? Smart of you to send a pretty man to deal with them.”

“They’re pervy old ladies,” Sabel said to Garrett. “And you’ve got all that vampire prettiness working for you. I figured I could make it work for _me_. Worked, too. They _never_ would’ve signed the receipt if I’d gone over to talk to them.”

Garrett took a bracing breath. “Well, that’s _disturbing_ , but not actually what I was talking about.” He glowered down at Sabel. “I can remember every second of my life as a vampire. Over 200 years of it. But the last several minutes are a _fog_.”

“Huh.” Sable and Ollie shared a look. She said, “Well, you should probably get used to that. Magic does weird stuff to the brain. Speaking of magic, it’s about time for us to check in. Ollie, are we good?”

“Yep! Just need the keys.”

They traded fobs and moved bags between cars. Ollie unhitched a small trailer from the back of his former SUV and linked it to the muscle car. He had a buyer who’d snap it up in a heartbeat and compensate well. Sabel liked the room in his truck. Garrett was sad to see the muscle car go, but after traveling in it for a few weeks, he conceded the need for a bigger vehicle. The transfer done, Sabel took one more moment to rifle through her own bags. He realized she was arming herself.

“Is there going to be trouble?” Garrett asked her quietly. Everyone was distracted, but there were still a lot of ears around them.

Sabel matched tone and said, “Markets tend to be gatherings of very powerful, but very poorly socialized people. There’s always trouble. Best you can do is stay out of it or, failing that, have an escape plan for if you get caught in the middle of something. Grenades help.”

She stood up, locked up their new used SUV, and pushed her dolly full of boxes and bags through the crowd. Garrett followed, arms full of the rest. He was visibly bursting with questions. “So besides _us_ not being for sale, how else does this differ from a fairy market?”

“Fairy markets happen in fairyland,” she said, shrugging as though that were obvious. “Or a border town. I ran supplies to one of those once. It was weird. I was happy to get out. As a rule, I try to stick to Unaffiliated markets. They usually show up in places like this: empty bits of space where nothing usually happens, so when magic gets introduced, anything does. Sometimes they’re in hotels like this. Other times, it’s schools or office buildings that’ve been recently abandoned. Places that remember there _should_ be people, but for whatever reason, there aren’t any.” They reached the entrance to the hotel; a series of floor to ceiling glass doors and windows, looking into a wide, beige lobby. They stepped in through the automatic doors and Sabel said, “case in point.”

A small, dim lobby greeted them. In an alcove to their left stood a wooden desk with only a bell, an oil lamp, and a guest book on top. Old fashioned mail slots and room keys hung behind it, but no bellboy or clerk was anywhere in sight. The lobby itself was narrow, long, and dimly lit. Carpets, wallpaper, and upholstery were in saturated shades of red, orange, and brown. The carpet had geometric patterns, while the cushions and wallpaper were floral. The brightest spot in the room was the bank of elevators on the far wall, which were a shiny, polished bronze. Garrett looked around in alarm. Behind them, the wall of glass was gone. Just, gone. Instead, there were two heavy oak doors with colored glass insets. And a hat stand.

“Don’t think about it too hard,” Sabel said, and spared him a conciliatory pat on the shoulder. “You’ll just stress yourself out trying to understand. Let’s sign in.”

The guestbook ledger was open to a blank page. A quill pen rested above it, waiting. Sabel grasped it and signed in. The paper was crisp and dry under her fingers. The ink released in a smooth, effortless glide as she wrote her name. She took a moment to savor the peacefulness of the moment. Sensations were so much more pronounced when magic was at play. Then she stepped aside and handed the pen to Garrett.

She looked around while Garrett freed a hand to sign. An old fashioned key with a numbered tag attached sat on the desk. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. Without a thought, she pocketed it. When she looked back at Garrett, he’d ended his signature with a sprawling flourish. Then, dropping the pen, he reached over to grab a pair of handcuffs, sitting where the key had been. Those had not been there before, either. They were still alone in the room.

Without a word, they each attached a cuff to their own wrist; Sabel to her left, Garrett to his right. A thin silver chain dangled between them. Sabel watched as Garrett blinked, shook his head, then started pulling at it. Once he’d proven to himself that he couldn’t break the chain, he looked at her and said, “I just knew to put them on. I don’t know _how_ I knew, but as soon as I finished signing, I knew I had to chain myself to you if I wanted to come in. And if I didn’t, something bad would happen to me.”

Sabel shrugged. “The Knowing of Rules is used pretty much universally. It’s more efficient than trying to memorize the different codes of conduct for the dozen or so groups that come to these things. You’ve never been glamored before, have you?”

“Not since I was human and changed.”

“Well then!” she said with blatantly fake cheer. “Good thing you’re finding out now what it feels like. Among non-judgmental company. Anyway, just about everybody uses a glamor to get by. Most of the time it’s benign. There _are_ charms and spells to deflect the mean stuff, but generally it’s for ease of communication or personal choice. Anticipate that your senses are lying to you.”

He looked unhappy about that. “And the chain?”

She shrugged. “Society is, amongst other things, a collection of rules people agree to abide by for the safety of the group. _You_ are a predator in a group unused to dealing with your kind. Just because half the people here aren’t human doesn’t mean safety concerns aren’t still valid. Your entry is conditional on my good reputation and _your_ good behavior. The chain is a visual symbol that you’re to be dealt with cautiously and a practical tool to keep you in line if you start shit. And it lays the blame on me if you fuck up, since I brought you here.”

“That’s barbaric,” he snarled. “Chaining people up like this.

Sabel raised an eyebrow. “…says the centuries old murder machine running from a violent, blood sucking totalitarian government to an equally -albeit differently- violent but way more aesthetic culture.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, by the way. I’m just saying… _when in Rome_ , you know?”

Garrett pursed his lips in displeasure, then admitted, “I haven’t thought any of this through, have I?”

“Finally noticed, huh? _My_ first clue was when you wanted to go straight to a fey court. That’s straight up cray-cray.” She grabbed the dolly and led the way to the elevators. “It’s fine, though. No one gets into this with a clear head. Literally everyone I’ve ever met since starting this life is either crazy or another fucking idiot trying to get by. Healthy, well-adjusted people don’t end up here.”

“Still. As you said, I’m centuries old. I should know more about all of this.”

“Sure. Everyone should know more. That’s just a fact. Know what else is a fact? You’ve spent most of those centuries thriving in an ecological niche that put you at the top of the food chain. Now that other, stronger predators are invading that niche, you’ve wisely decided to branch out. Surprise! Outside of your niche, you’re _no longer_ the most powerful or well adapted thing around. Be patient with yourself. And be polite. I can _not_ stress that enough.”

Garrett nodded and followed her into one of the shining elevators. They rode up to the second floor.

“An illuminating perspective. Thank you. Now, going back to our earlier conversation,” he said awkwardly, shifting the bags around in his arms. “You said this market was… _unaffiliated_? What exactly does that mean?”

“The Unaffiliated is a group. Sort of a union? A _collective_. We’ve got witches and cryptids and wild fey – everyone who doesn’t want to pledge their fealty to one of the fey courts. Also, shifters and werewolves who want to avoid pack drama. Also, this is pretty much where all the humans go if they don’t’ want to be a pet. Here or a border town. There’s still politics, but it’s more ‘if you misbehave, you have to try your luck getting supplies on etsy.’ Whereas fey courts are more… ‘if you look at me wrong, I’ll turn you and your lover into poison ivy for a hundred years.’ No, wait, one of them would be poison ivy, the other would be an ass. Just a literal human ass, sitting in poison ivy for a hundred years.

“Anyway, the Unaffiliated acts as an alternative to the traditional ways of surviving while living with magic. No selling your soul, no bad-faith bargains, no hiding in the swamp to avoid the villagers with their pitchforks, no _literal_ _slavery_ -“

“Sounds idyllic?” he offered uncertainly.

“Hardly. Being the least terrible option isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. And like the Baldwin sisters outside, plenty of people just suck. But very few of us are strong enough to stand on our own. And going back to the real world is… not an option for a lot of us. So we join up with the Unaffiliated. We don’t have to like each other to keep each other alive.”

By this time, they’d reached the second floor and were searching for their room. They passed open doors, and Sabel recognized other couriers like herself, setting up their own make-shift store fronts. Other rooms housed familiars, notary services, and other almost mundane services. It was an unspoken rule to keep the “utilities” closest to the exits. That way, those who only needed that one thing could get in and out as soon as possible. Like the returns counter at a Target.

Sabel liked it that way. Upper floors always had too much screaming.

Room 203 looked like any other hotel room, albeit strangely dated. A double bed, a wardrobe, dresser, and tv stand were all very sleek and modern. Two antique arm chairs, bedecked in carved roses and curlicues, faced each other before the curtained window. Vintage lamps cast the room in dim yellow light. And there was the same awkward mishmash of geometric and floral prints as the lobby – hexagons on the carpet, and wallpaper with ordered columns of pink posies. The bath suite looked like it had been recently redone. It was certainly newer than the mini fridge in the corner and the bulky cube of a tv. Of course, the appearances didn’t mean anything. Everything was touched with glamor. Years into this world and Sabel still didn’t know how much was real, how much was magic, and how much was her brain filling in the gaps, like eyes filling in the details at the edges of sight. She noticed Garrett move to open the curtains.

“Don’t,” she said. She was too tired to deal with him freaking out over whatever unreality he’d see on the other side of the glass. Mercifully, he left well enough alone.

Together, they spread out everything they’d brought from the car across the bed. Sabel checked it against the running list she kept on her person at all times. There were years-worth of orders within it, all heavily coded and glamored against snooping. Standard industry practice. But it meant Garrett couldn’t help. He sat by the windows, still and sulky while she worked.

“You’re bored,” she said. “I won’t need you until I open at 9. Go check out the other open rooms. See if anyone needs help. Ask your questions. But _only_ if they say it’s not a bother! If someone says go, you go,” she added imperiously.

Garrett lifted his wrist and jingled the cuff meaningfully.

Sabel scoffed. “That’ll only drag you back if you start acting like a dick. Otherwise, it should stretch as much as you need it to. It hasn’t even tangled. Haven’t you noticed?”

A thoughtful look crossed his face as he retraced their movements and thought of all the spots where they should’ve tripped each other up. In the end, he just nodded and said, “I really do have so much more to learn than I realized. Accosting you was a great idea!”

She just snorted and shooed him out of the room.

Everything was accounted for. Her weapons and charms were in easy reach. She took a moment to make herself more presentable in the bathroom, then went out to say hi to her neighbors. When a young Pan came by asking about her hours of operation for the schedule, she scribbled in her times.

9 to 11 – pick up

11 to 12 – break

12 to 2 – scheduling deliveries

2 to 3 – break

3 to 4:30 – scheduling deliveries

4:30 to 5 – courier meeting

5 to 6 – clean up and check out

‘Guests’ would know her schedule, same as they all knew the rules, as soon as they signed in. She hoped her 12 to 2 slot would fill up so she could leave early. The new car had so much more leg room and she was looking forward to stretching out as she slept. As for the rest of the night? The courier meeting was just a formality; she’d already gotten most of the information she needed in the parking lot. Any other big news would be gathered by wandering the upper floors during her breaks.

There were no tugs on the chain, nor any unexpected banishments from the building. Garrett reappeared well before 9, looking contemplative but otherwise unchanged. Customers arrived. Pick-ups went smoothly. The novelty of a vampire at her side made people linger, and Garrett took advantage to query an ever wider pool of people. He was still chattering with a small crowd of customers when 11 struck, and Sabel made the decision to leave him to his fans while she ventured into the upper floors.

The third floor was a bazaar. No walls, no doors, no windows, just an open floor full of booths, kiosks, and tents. Merchants greeted her with nods, and an old satyr offered her free mystery meat kabobs. She graciously declined. Further along, a matronly werewolf named Beatrix waved her down. Beatrix ran an apothecary and had a small army of nieces and nephews Sabel whom regularly delivered birthday presents to.

“Eat this,” she said, shoving a Tupperware container full of bishops pie into Sabel’s hand. “Sit behind the screen. _Listen_. Folk tonight have shallow pockets but the gossip is prime.”

The king of the Court of Silk had been overthrown. The new king, despite having violently beheaded his predecessor, was overall considered a more even tempered ruler.

Some of the eastern courts were uniting. Opinions varied.

The Restored were growing in number.

A trust fund baby in Vermont wanted to catch the Mothman and dissect it. There was a death pool forming upstairs over how quickly and how violently he’d perish in the attempt.

The Romanian vampires had figured out the stock market and were growing their wealth. Too little too late, but their determination was perversely inspiring.

Speaking of vampires, did you know there’s one downstairs?

The Restored were recruiting in the border towns. They set fire to a lord’s summer house.

Another disappearance in the everglades. The eighth. All witches. No one had claimed the kills, yet.

That Li woman kept buying up all the genuine cursed puppets. All that remained were haunted dolls. _Everyone_ was into haunted dolls now!

The Restored wanted a war. With who? With the world.

Then it was midnight, and Sabel slipped back downstairs. A few regulars arranged their standard orders with her – pick up this here on day x, deliver there before day y, half payment upfront and the rest upon delivery, etc. But the crowd was sparser than usual. Explanations abounded on the second floor. The was location too dull. The Volturi were making people nervous. The economy, it was in shambles. Nearly everyone had congregated in the hall, sitting against walls or leaning out of their doors to talk. Courier meeting had been effectively rescheduled. The only boon of the night came when some of the wealthier customers – trust fund babies who had survived their own youthful Mothman misadventures – interpreted Sabel’s ‘pet vampire’ a sign of competency and hired her for several deliveries. (Privately, it always amused her that the same men and women who wanted cursed items to display in their homes didn’t trust themselves to safely get it there.)

She took her second break at 2 and led Garrett to the upper floors while she made her rounds collecting orders at the stalls. Apparently there was such a thing as a blood merchant, and they were more than happy to talk Garrett’s ear off about expanding their consumer base. Well. Didn’t that just tie the night up in a neat little bow?

It was nearly 4 when Sabel managed to lead Garrett back to their room. They found they weren’t the only ones who had decided to pack it in early, and the hallway and elevators were swarmed with drivers and merchants making their way to their cars. It may have been an early end to the night, but it still took time to clean up. Even with the thin turnout, and even with a vampire helping her, it took Sabel several trips from her room to the car. And then, once they’d finished their own work, and because Garrett had been _so_ sociable, they had to help some of the other couriers load their deliveries.

They were loading up Beatrix’s trailer when they heard the first shout. Then came a scream. Then Garrett was carrying her across the parking lot toward their car. The world blurred past at a speed she hadn’t felt in years. No. Fuck the danger, she didn’t want this. She slid a stiletto knife out of her sleeve and dug it into Garrett’s neck until he put her down.

Sabel was dizzy from the sudden movement. Nauseous even. But she forced herself into stillness and got her bearings. Looked towards the screams. Black robed figures had emerged from the field. She counted eight of them. They strode across the parking lot at a slow, human pace. In front of them, the people nearest were crumpled on the asphalt, screaming and writhing, though she couldn’t tell why. She knew who they were, though. She recognized that effortless gait, those red lined robes, that sense of drama. Volturi.

Behind her, Garrett was saying something. Or trying to. Sabel would apologize to him later. Maybe. She sprinted towards the encroaching death squad, striving to reach the fallen. They were still screaming, still seizing. She reached into the inner pocket of her coat. She pulled out a grenade. She pulled the pin. And she threw it.

...

Magic likes broken people. The weirdos and the damaged. The ones who have cracks for the magic to fill in. It’s not a gift when it happens. You don’t automatically get any cool powers or go on adventures. It just seeps in and makes you stranger. Makes you think different. Makes things happen around you. Makes you and your life so fucking _off_ that normal people want fuck all to do with you.

There’s all sorts of stuff I don’t understand about the world I live in (which is no different from the world I left, I suppose). Like, what determines who has power and who doesn't? Who stays human and who becomes a witch or a shifter? Speaking of, are witches and shifters humans who were strange and came together? Are the fey just whole societies that became so ruined the magic ran wild through them? These are questions I have and can’t answer. No one can. Once, I spent a year holing up in libraries between jobs, reading philosophy and mythology and conspiracies. Bugging my customers about it. Trying to reconcile my life. I told Ollie about it one night a few years back, when I was drunk and feeling soft. He gave me a milk-crate full of Terry Pratchett paperbacks and just said, “Things just happen. What the hell.”

Nerd.

It was not the answer I’d been hoping for. But it was _an_ answer. And in my new life, the books felt better than the classics I’d clung to. All those AP English reading curriculum favorites, where magic wasn’t real. Or it was all in someone’s head. Or it was a metaphor. I used to like reading them and digging into the deeper meanings. They felt wrong when I read them now, like clothes I’d outgrown. I guess in a way I had. Hard to read magic as a metaphor when you knew it was real. And terrible. Magic was absurd. It was bullshit and chaotic. And for whatever reason, it was in me.

I blame the Cullen’s for it, I really do. They were the catalyst. I got too close to them and the shape of me changed to fit. But there's also this: I was a too quiet, too pale girl in the desert, living like an orphan despite two living parents, who just couldn’t make _any_ friends. Ever. Anywhere. Looking back at my childhood, I was like a living wraith, leaving no impression on the world until I met something, some _one_ , even weirder than myself. I'd started breaking so young. So yeah, the magic didn’t take me until after the Cullen’s. But maybe Edward wanted me, however briefly, because the potential was already there.

I think what it comes down to is that, human or not, we’re like the buildings the markets inhabit. Empty places that remember they’re supposed to be more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for hanging in here with me, folks! hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. i don't know how to feel about this chapter. lot of world building that i both thought very hard about but also half-assed. also, i had a lot more planned for this chapter, but it was getting so loooong. next chapter will be actiony, though! writing action still feels very new to me, so i'm both excited and terrified. another thing to look forward to in chapters yet to come: cullen cameos! i've had an ask or two about whether we'd see the cullen's in this story, and while i hadn't originally planned on it, your interest has made me reconsider. they still aren't going to be a huge part of the story (i've got plans for a one shot set a few years later that deals more explicitly with that the cullen's themselves), but i do like the idea of Bella/Sabel at least partially confronting a source of her trauma in this story.
> 
> given how this chapter is very exposition heavy and i suspect i didn't do the best job with all of it, feel free to ask questions and i will break my usual anxious silence to answer in the comments. alternatively, holler at me on twitter @drowsyreaper and distract me from my ongoing existential dread!


	7. really working for that M rating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever wanted to be part of a pre-dawn, wild west style shoot out in a hotel parking lot, with a bunch of cryptids and MacGyver'd weapons on your side and a horde of virtually indestructible immortals on the other? Because I think that would be just neat.

The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had started and Sabel pulled the first body she reached away from the attack. The Volturi guards had been scattered in the blast. The cratered asphalt attested to the force of the blast. But they were vampires; as long as they were still in one piece, it was only a matter of time before they rallied, and they were so _fast_ -

And then Garrett was there, pulling the stunned victim from her arms and disappearing with them back towards the hotel. Then he ran back and grabbed another one. And another. Others were joining him, emptying that corner of the lot of as many people as they could reach. Sabel saw winged beings swoop down and collect still twitching figures. Vines sprung from the asphalt to wrap around victims and pull them to safety. Something huge and black and shapeless rose between the vampires and those fallen closest to them and _loomed_. The Volturi did not attack it, at least not that Sabel could see. When the last of the victims had been gathered up, the giant dispersed into so many shadows and did not return. And the Volturi began a more cautious approach.

A small party had formed to hold off the Volturi, just long enough for everyone else to get away. Sabel, Garrett, the satyr from the third floor, Ollie, and half a dozen more she didn’t know. She emptied her pockets of hand grenades and flares, dispersed among the others. Ollie traded her a shotgun and a handful of odd looking shells. Beside her, an East Asian man she’d seen around cheerfully aimed a modified rifle at a giant of a vamp – she thought it might’ve been Felix, but she couldn’t tell in the dark – and let out an excited whoop as the headshot hit and the giant fell.

“The new tips work, Cassie!” he shouted to someone behind them. 

A spark emitted from the wound. Then came the sound of popping, and at once a fire burst out of the unknown vampire’s forehead. It grew and grew until it engulfed him. He screamed and thrashed, but no one came to his aid. The other vampires just stood back and watched him burn.

“Incendiary round went off just fine, too! Of course, they might not stay still long enough for that to work a second time, but-”

“Shut up and focus,” a wry voice ordered, and Sabel pinned it as Cass. She looked back and confirmed that it was indeed the half-dryad. Sabel hadn’t seen her that night, but was happy to see her with them now. The older woman had set up a triage against the hotel, checking Jane’s victims and organizing the evacuation. Only a few trembling bodies remained.

No one had died. Not yet. 

Then again, Jane the Pain’s power only made you _wish_ for death. From what Sabel knew, that was important to Aro, the wishing. Making sure his enemies knew that death was a kindness and a freedom only he could grant. Ensuring that he was still viewed as a savior, even as he destroyed everything he touched.

(Carlisle had considered him a friend.)

The giant burned quickly and terribly. Ollie threw another grenade into their midst since they were conveniently standing so still and pushed them further back. Sabel carefully slid a knife to Garrett – he could move fast enough to make better use of it than her right now – and held tight to a dragon fire bomb. She wouldn’t use it, not yet. Not at this distance, and not while there were still people to evacuate. Not while there was still a chance of their own escape.

Then a tiny figure – Jane – advanced on them. Around her, everyone dropped to their knees, screaming and writhing. Everyone except her and the man who shot Maybe-Felix. There was no time to wonder at that. Her shotgun was primed and Sabel trusted Ollie to have loaded those shells with something useful. She pulled the trigger. A shot trailing green sparks burst from the left barrel and hit Jane square in the chest, throwing her back twenty feet. It sounded like fireworks. Beside her, her new companion let fly another incendiary round, this time into a robed figure sneaking up on their left. They fell close enough that Sabel could feel the flames.

“Fall back!” Cass shouted from behind them. The others had been released from Jane’s power and Garrett, recovering almost at once, was on his feet, dragging people away. Sabel pumped the shotgun and took aim again, waiting for another chance. She didn’t dare waste a shot if she could help it. And maybe she wouldn’t have to. The vamps scattered in front of her were slow. These Volturi, for all their skills and strength and terrifying reputation, were holding back. Sabel wondered why. It was only her and the smiling man still facing them. Had their resistance to Jane’s ability thrown them so? Or was it simpler than that? How long had it been since the Volturi faced a real challenge?

Behind them, the noise had lessened. Fewer engines were idling. Voices argued in low, hurried tones. But not many. Not the chorus that had been yelling minutes ago. She trusted Garrett or Cass to let her know when they could fall back and run. Or if she needed to throw that last grenade and just be done with it. She felt the weight of it in her coat pocket. Waiting.

Then the Volturi swung their heads toward their right, to stare at the field that stretched from the parking lot to the shadowed horizon. Sabel couldn’t see anything in the dark. Until a spike of red and green flame shot out from the dark. Then another. And another. Another guard was on fire. Shapes emerged from the field and stepped into the light of the streetlamps. They were human, or at least human shaped, dressed in sleek grey outfits that might’ve been athleticwear if not for the kevlar armor. And – were they carrying _flamethrowers_?

More pillars of flame lit up the dying night. Some were strafing the perimeter, but most were aimed at the Volturi…, who were _retreating_.

“Time to go!” Her companion was gathering the dropped weapons at their feet. “This is _officially_ not our fight anymore.”

Sabel had question. Many questions. And a growing number of suspicions. Theories, even. But she knew when to haul ass. She hadn’t got in this fight to win, but to survive, and now? Surviving meant running. She was happy to do so.

Garrett had the car started and the passenger door open for her. Cass was yelling at the smiling man to hurry up. She had one foot in her pick up truck, and Sabel could make out the shriveled figure of the High Witch in the cab next to her, hands moving and mouth muttering the shape of some curse. Everyone else was already gone. As she slid into the seat next to Garrett, the other man leapt into the half full bed of Cass’s truck, got low, and aimed a rifle at the shit show still playing out behind them. He stayed there as they drove away, tires squealing, and only hunkered down when the fight was out of sight.

The silence was sudden. The roads were empty. Dawn was finally poking its head around the corner. Sabel reflected that beginning of her night and the end of it felt lifetimes apart. And now she was back in a car beside Garrett, as she had been for weeks. As they drove further away from the scene of the fight, the last few minutes felt more and more like a fever dream. But behind them, the sky brightened as the hotel caught fire.

\--

They back-roaded for miles until they met back up with the interstate. Garrett followed Cass’s truck. Her sharp shooter waved at them from the truck bed every now and then. Mostly, he lay flat. Smart. If Sabel had been forced to clean human roadkill off her new ride because some idiot wanted to car surf, she would burn down the world.

The sun had well risen by the time they stopped to regroup. Cass pulled into a visitors center at the state line, surrounded by thick tree cover and the air around it was filled with the scents of Cinnabon’s and coffee. As soon as Garrett brought the car to a stop, Sabel was _out_. She needed to pee. She needed coffee. She _needed_ to eat her weight in warm, gooey, corporate baked goods. Then and only then would she be prepared to face the day.

The little High Witch was suddenly at her side. Then ahead of her in the line for the restrooms. “Age before beauty, chicky.” Well then.

They met again in line for coffee and treats, and when Sabel ordered, the High Witch added several more drinks to it. And didn’t offer to help pay. Sabel nearly made an issue of it, but under the lights, she could see how worn the old woman was. She had never seen the older woman at a market looking anything less than perfect. And now, everything about her seemed… _rumpled_. As though her very essence was an outfit that had been shucked off and tossed in a forgotten corner. She _had_ wondered if someone was keeping the Volturi away.

“How’d you do that,” she asked quietly, “keep them so still and all?” They were both nursing Styrofoam cups of coffee at a far table while they waited for the rest of their order. The Witch huffed.

“What’s it matter to you? It’s not like you could do anything with it. Even if I _did_ tell you. Which I won’t.”

Sabel shrugged. “That’s your prerogative. I’ve just found that knowing things helps me, you know, _stay alive_ better.”

The older woman looked at her shrewdly. “You’re the one that killed Dmitri a few weeks back.”

“And that fire in Tacoma last year,” Sabel said modestly. “Though he was still new. Hadn’t even made the Volturi Watch Guide, yet. Who’s behind that, by the way? It’s been super helpful.”

“Not me, though I’ll pass on your regards.” She took a deep gulp of coffee and pushed the emptied cup off the table. Like a cat, Sabel thought. “Why’d you bring the vampire? I’m not saying he wasn’t helpful last night, but why?”

“He asked to join me,” Sabel said, shrugging. “And he wasn’t a dick about it when he could’ve been. Plus,” she leaned back and gestured at herself. “I am obviously a small, delicate woman in a job that is too dangerous and physically demanding for me. Obviously I need a big strong man to protect me in the long nights. And carry shit. _And_ I don’t have to pay him anything. All he wants is to know about what’s going on beyond humans and vampire drama. Win-win.”

The witch was frowning. “But why does he want learn about us? In all my years, I’ve never met a vampire so interested in anything it couldn’t eat.”

“Short-term goal? He’s trying to get away from the Volturi. And honestly, who wouldn’t? Long-term goal? He’s trying to find people strong enough to take them down.”

“Like you?”

Sabel slammed down her cup of coffee, suddenly and inexplicably furious. God she was tired. What came out of her mouth was this: “ _I’m not interested in fighting anyone’s war_.” The witch raised a disbelieving brow. Sabel felt herself twitching. She was tired. She didn’t want to talk about this with a woman she knew only slightly better than her own insane but firm reasoning. Nevertheless, she spoke. The words ground out of her, sticky and convoluted, but true. “I want to live. For as long as I can stand to. And when I die, it’s gonna be peaceful and quiet and unremarkable and _nobody’s_ gonna give a shit. That’s what I want, what I expect. Nothing about fighting the fucking _Volturi_ is peaceful or quiet. I’ve fought them. Three times now. And I haven’t survived all that just to join some centenarian’s crusade for a change of pace. I am a _delivery girl_. I am _delivering_ the idiot to resources. The markets are full of enough murderers and fight-happy idiots and questing heroes to build an army with. I don’t need to be among them. I _won’t_ be. Simple as that.”

The witch looked at Sabel with an indecipherable expression. Then, slowly, she replied, “so you say. But I had a good view of things last night. No one had to ask you to join the fray. In fact, no one had even thought to before you hurled yourself into the thick of it. Certainly no one asked you to stay until the end. You did that all on your own. I don’t know why it should surprise you. Swans are vicious about defending their territory. No, don’t stand up,” she said to Sabel, as she herself stood from her seat. “It’s time for me to take my leave. There’s much to do after markets. More, after markets that end in violence. I’ll see myself out. Don’t forget to take the drinks and breakfast to Cassandra; they’re expecting it.”

A girl at the counter called out that the rest of her order was ready – the timing too convenient to be coincidence – and when Sabel looked for the old witch again, she was gone. She was not nearly caffeinated for this. She also did not have enough hands.

Through the aid of a large bag slung over her wrist, heavy with warm buns, and stacked drink carriers (only four people were drinking, why were there three carriers?) Sabel made her way outside. The cars were where she’d left them, parked in an empty corner of the lot and shaded by trees. Garrett still sat in the driver’s seat with the window down, and she could see the frown on his face even from a distance. A few feet away, Cass paced the length of her truck, a cell phone pressed to her ear. The witch was nowhere to be seen.

The smiling man stood leaning against the truck, his face pensive as he looked up into the trees. In the sunlight, she got a better look at him. He was East Asian, that much she’d seen clearly in the dark, but now she could see that he was stunningly handsome. Thick black hair had been combed back, away from his face, and revealing elegant features. He was tall enough, 5’11” or 6’ at a glance, with broad shoulders that tapered to a lean waist. Sasha would’ve been drooling.

It was as she tried to place an age that all the little things connected. The beauty, the grace, the ease of battle. He was some sort of immortal. Not a vampire, or he would’ve been sparkling. Not ethereal enough to be a member of the gentry, unless he was under a better glamour than she’d yet encountered. He didn’t _move_ like a shifter. Every shifter she’d ever met, no matter what they turned into, carried themselves differently. It was an awareness of themselves in their own skin and in the space they inhabited. And he didn’t have it. Age wise, he could’ve been an old 20 or a young 60, and anything in between. But that wasn’t right either. He was whatever age the viewer needed him to be. Somehow, she didn’t think it was a glamour.

As if feeling her eyes on him, he turned and spotted her. The smile returned as though it had never left his face, and he jogged over to meet her. “Hello again, brain buddy,” he greeted, and took the tower of drink trays from her arms.

“Brain buddy?”

“Sure,” he said, and somehow freed an arm to tap at his temple. “Jane the Pain’s taser trick didn’t hit you. You’ve got a good shield up. Is it natural or did you train it?”

He was a bit of a conversational freight train, she realized worriedly. He hit you and you went with him. “Um, natural, I guess? I had a boyfriend in high school who was a telepath. He said he could never get a read on me.”

“ _Nice_. I had to train myself, but it was worth the effort. Too many people out there think they have a right to what’s in your head.” He winced. “Though to have mindreading naturally, that’s a rough talent. Hope he got a better hold on it since then.”

Sabel scoffed and was afraid she was about to say something unbearably honest. Except they had reached the cars by then and Garrett looked up sharply. “What about mindreading?”

“That it sucks,” the other man said, unruffled by Garrett’s obvious surliness. Sabel hadn’t noticed it earlier, her thoughts consumed by the adrenaline of the shootout and their escape. But Garrett hadn’t said a word since they left the hotel and that was…, uncharacteristic. She’d thought he wasn’t talking because she’d stabbed him, but obviously his vocal folds had healed, and Garrett wasn’t the type to stay angry over a little assault. Something else was going on. “By the way, I haven’t introduced myself yet. Call me J!”

“Jay? Like- Jacob?” Sabel asked, distracted and feeling some sort of way.

“Sure! Why not? Jacob. John. Jingleheimer Schmidt? However that song goes. Whatever J is needed for the situation. A universal J, if you will!”

“Noted.”

J-Not-Necessarily-Jacob kept up a steady stream of chatter as they divvied up breakfast. Sabel responded good naturedly, exhaustion and the relief of living to see the sunshine loosening her tongue enough for the courtesy of small talk. Garrett tossed in a word or two when appropriate but not much more.

J must have been a conversational savant, as he managed to navigate around Garrett’s surliness and Sabel’s sleep deprived earnestness. She worried she was talking too much, revealing secrets. But the only secrets that had come up were how many Cinnabon’s she could eat in a sitting and how she preferred her coffee. Plus, he was traveling with Cass, and she was good people and Did Not Suffer Fools. Sabel tried to relax.

J decimated two coffee’s and half of the first box of fresh buns all on his own. Then he took a cup, a bun, and the lone breakfast sandwich the witch had ordered, and excused himself to deliver them to Cass.

“Are you alright?” Sabel asked Garrett once they were alone.

“I’m fine,” he said, too sharply. Then, unclenching, he explained, “I recognized one of the guards. Not at first; it was only at the end, when the fire had brightened everything. Then I realized who it was. I’d heard a rumor a few years ago that he’d broken off from his coven, but to join the Volturi- it’s taken me by surprise, that’s all. He never seemed the type.”

“I’m sorry. That really sucks.”

Garrett barked a laugh. “It does indeed.” They loitered together in companionable silence for a while. Sabel stayed standing, leaning against the suv. She worried that she’d fall asleep if she sat. And the cold kept her too uncomfortable to doze off on her feet. And she wanted to hear from Cass. Cass always knew what was going on.

Cass was an older woman, tall, broad, and ambiguously brown. Sabel had realized embarrassingly late in their acquaintance that this had less to do with melanin and more to do with her being part dryad. (In hindsight, it was humiliatingly obvious.) Cass followed the markets, dealing in trees: how to heal them, how to hurt them when they went bad, how to hide a holy wood from blasphemers, how to survive a cursed one. Sabel hadn’t thought magical tree doctors were in high demand. Showed how little _she_ knew. Wherever Cass went, she was needed, and where she was needed, she was met with open arms and gratitude. The world needed trees, after all. And so it needed Cass.

Plus, she’d been kind to Sabel back when she’d stuck out on her own after the Greens. It was a small thing, that kindness. But between it and her overall competence, Sabel found herself yearning for Cass’s approval like a sickness. Not that she’d ever say as much. Sabel was self-aware enough to recognize she had issues about supportive parental figures. And frankly, that was her business. There was no need for Cass to know she’d been emotionally adopted. So Sabel kept her distance, as she always had, and was content to wait for Cass to finish her phone calls.

She finished another of coffee and grudgingly admitted that the witch’s additions to her order had been wise. Garrett shifted, until his torso half hung out of the window. He looked uncomfortable. “So this may be a bad time,” he began ominously, “but I need to take a few personal days.”

Sabel arched a tired eyebrow at him. “What am I, your HR department?” He smiled grimly.

“It shouldn’t take long. There’s a small vampire coven I’m friendly with who keep to this …general geographic area. And _they’re_ friends with the coven the guard I saw hails from. I’d like to take a few days to track them down and see if they know more about what happened there.”

She shrugged. “That’s fine with me. As soon as I reach a motel, I’m planning to sleep for a week.”

“You might want to get those cuffs off, before you separate,” Cass said, approaching the with J in tow. She was finally done with her calls. Sabel and Garrett looked at their wrists.

“Huh.”

“I’d honestly forgotten we were wearing these.”

“Quality fey craftsmanship,” Cass said, “nothing quiet like it, no matter how hard we try to imitate. Still, those were made for the market; I wouldn’t want to do a distance test on them.” She pulled a ring of keys out of her denim overalls and started flicking through them. Cass always dressed like a farmer on the way to punk rock concert, Sabel thought. All sturdy fabrics, sensible shoes, industrial jewelry, and every surface, be it clothing or skin, covered in sharpie marks. She frowned. “You didn’t leave anything behind at the hotel, did you?”

“No,” Sabel said, shaking her head. “We have all our own stuff, but we got caught up socializing. Then the Volturi happened, and we never checked out.”

“You’re not the only ones,” Cass said, and sighed heavily. “That’s part of what took so long. Had to phone tree everyone to make sure we really did get everyone out unharmed.”

“Jane’s victims?” Garrett asked.

“They’re rallying. Though it may be a while before anyone sleeps through the night. Ah!” She held up a shimmering key and fit it into the tiny locking mechanism on Sabel’s wrist. Both cuffs sprang open and dropped to the ground. Cass gathered it up and passed them to Sabel. “Hang on to these. You never know when you need a good chain.”

“Did I hear right? Did you say you knew one of the Volturi?” J asked Garrett.

He nodded tiredly. “Not closely, but well enough that seeing him there was a shock.” J winced sympathetically. “His coven has more than a few powers in it. If any more of them have joined the guard, I want to know.”

“As do we,” Cass agreed. “Have you seen the most recent spotters guide? The Unaffiliated try to keep up with who’s who and what they can do, but we’re limited to word of mouth and survivor testimony.”

“Sabel showed me the one from January and he wasn’t on it.”

“Let me get you some phone numbers-“

Sabel felt her attention slipping. And then her body started to _lean_ -

“Hey!” She blinked. Garrett was out of the car and holding her up on one side. J was on the other, not touching her, but arms at the ready to catch her if she needed it.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she apologized by reflex and tried to straighten herself out. “I’m okay. Just tired.”

“You’re dead on your feet is what you are,” Cass scolded. Then she groaned. “And I’m not far behind you. Get her in the car,” she said to Garrett. “I’ve got a place to stay, about an hour from here. You can follow me there and we can all rest up for a few days while you do your thing, okay? When you’re done, we may even have a clearer picture of what just happened this morning.”

Sabel didn’t hear Garrett’s response. Voices were becoming white noise, her vision was filled with the hot grey of her eyelids. But she felt arms around her, lifting and carrying her. Felt the support of a seat under her and the warmth of the cars’ heaters. Then she felt nothing at all. She’d fallen into the abyss of sleep.

\--

I am mortal and I am going to die one day. So are you. So is everyone. All that varies is when and how. It’s not like humans are special about death either. Cryptids die. Fey die, though they’re real bitches about it. Vampires die. Violently. I hadn’t hung out with the Cullen’s more than a handful of times before they mutilated and cremated someone on my behalf. And they were the ‘civilized’ ones.

I’ve realized some shit as I’ve gotten older. You may have heard that that’s a thing that happens. With age comes experience and with experience comes new and exciting shifts in perspective. When I was 17, I wanted to be young and in love and safe forever. Being young? Not in itself a horrible wish. I wanted to be the same age as the boy I loved; what was wrong with that? In love? Entire media empires have been built around the idea that love is the best. It may have been stupid but I was stupid in company. Safe? Logical. And _yet_. _There_ was a fallacy. A kink in my logic. Because from the beginning, I’d seen again and again that nothing about being a vampire was safe. But that’s youth for you. Inexperience mistaking the thrill of new love with the adrenaline rush of surviving successive bad decisions.

…Actually, that puts the dirt bikes and forest hikes in a new light. Huh.

But yeah. Despite a body of evidence to the contrary, I had made physical invulnerability synonymous with safety. And why not? Why wouldn’t think that being as tough as a vampire made me safe? Sure, one vamp had been murdered over me. But that was different. That was a _bad_ vampire. An outlier. The rules were different. Violent deaths only happened if you’d done something wrong.

Obviously, that was some victim blaming bullshit right there.

But I wasn’t looking at it logically. I was looking at it through the eyes of the infatuated and the weak. I was caught up in being protected. In _needing_ that protection and hating it. I wanted to stand strong with my vampire family. To not be a burden. If I was like them, they wouldn’t need to protect me, to work so hard. Family didn’t ask each other for things, didn’t impose. I’d already caused so much trouble for them, they’d never want to keep me, they’d never approve, they’d never let me _stay_ , but if I were _stronger_ I could-

…

So I overlooked the obvious. Sure, I could be young and beautiful and tough for decades, centuries, _millennia_. But eventually death would catch up to me. And it would catch up hard. Vampires were too tough for easy deaths. For _kind_ deaths. No deceased on impact. No swift overdose or assisted suicide. No gas leak in the night to send you off, lickety-split. Death for the vampire was burning and dismemberment and pain you felt all the more deeply with your elevated senses and rapid brain.

Immortality was precarious. You stopped dying of plague and started dying because you spilled blood on someone’s cravat a hundred years ago and they only _just_ got around to scratching off your name on their shit list. Imagine how _many_ shit lists you can get on when time loses its hold on you. Even the Cullen’s – peaceful, sainted Cullen’s, who kept out of vampire drama when they could – were on more than a few.

Death comes for all of us. For vampires, it comes in ancient grudges and brutal fights. Quiet wars under moonless skies. Infernos that burned until every atom was ash.

So yeah, I’ll probably die way before most of these Volturi idiots, and way before the cryptids and witches and weirdoes I’ve met over the years, especially if I keep running towards danger like I do. Because let’s be real, no amount of experience can trump the sheer power of my dumbassery. But at least I’ll die with my dumb normal nerve endings and my million vulnerabilities that will let me peace out sans dismemberment.

I gotta say, though, if I have any preferences over how I go, it’s this: I don’t want to die because of a vampire. I can die in any of a million ways, and if there’s anything on the other side of that left to care? I’ll get over it. But if I go out via vampire – biting, hunting, fucking _run over_ by a biker caravan of the undead – then somehow, someway, no matter where I end up, no matter what’s out there in the great beyond, I will find a way to punch God in the dick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I didn't mean to take this long between chapters, but my mental health (and general health, honestly) took a nose dive last month and it's been a slog climbing back up. But I'm doing better now. Work is busy but good. Nervous about our next stage of reopening to the public but that's an issue to panic over as it comes. Story-wise, I've solidified what I want Sabel's emotional arc to be, now I just gotta get the plot to align so it all works out. Easy? Easy. Thoughts on OCs? Yea? Nay? Was the shoot out cool? I've never written a shoot out before. I hope it was cool. For as much thought as I put into it, it's really short compared to the rest of the chapter. What's with that?
> 
> Hope everyone is keeping themselves safe and together out there. Come yell at me about books on Twitter @drowsyreaper!


	8. aren't you sick of going feral? don't you want to just take a nap?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zephyr is just trying to get by in a gig economy. Sabel is dropping exposition and waiting (and making friends shhh). Garrett is offscreen but not forgotten.

_Someone was coming._

Zephyr woke up.

She lay across her bed, posed pretty as a corpse, and still wearing last night’s party clothes. The room was empty now. It had been full of friends before that last blink, but they’d disappeared with the dawn. They hadn’t bothered to clean up before they went. There was glitter in the carpet and broken glass. Nag champa and dragons blood still filled the air, but so did the stale scents of yeast and cigarettes. She sat up and took stock of herself. Her blankets were covered in sequins and gold dust and an upturned ashtray. Worse, she was still wearing her boots, and the foot of the bed was a mess of dried dirt. She grimaced. Her magic was so useful for parties and so bad for cleaning them up.

The thought came again.

 _Someone was coming_.

The knock sounded a moment later. It was heavy and familiar. Zephyr was on her feet before she knew it, sliding back the latch, unlocking the deadbolt. Crouch waited at the threshold.

Her keeper/father/teacher, Crouch looked like all of those things and none of them, all at once. He was broad and firm and severe, reliable and formidable, and deeply unpleasant. Somehow, Zephyr loved him anyway. She loved the firmness of him, the gravity he gave to her life. She loved that he looked like an angry rectangle.

She did not love the profound anxiety that accompanied his visits. Buttercup- _Richard’s_ visit had been unsettling enough and now Crouch was on her doorstep. Zephyr spared a thought to be grateful that she hadn’t eaten yet, so there was nothing to throw up. Crouch would never say anything cruel about it, but she knew he would judge and never forget.

In that, he was like all fey – a long memory and unspoken codes of honor and decorum and deceit. In that, his blood revealed that he was fey.

But otherwise, Crouch was an anomaly among his kind. He was gentry, no one doubted that, but he looked all wrong. Too big, too broad, too dark, too mortal. The gentry were most often marked by their terrible beauty, but Crouch was just terrible. The courts and wild fey speculated wildly. He was cursed. He was part mortal. He was a wild fey who’d won a boon in ages past. He was one of the Banished; a child of the old gods and spirits who’d walked this land before the fey came. Zephyr had heard all the speculation. She’d gone hunting for it when she was younger, eager to devour any hint about the man who raised her. But if anyone knew the truth of Crouch knew better than to speak of it.

What mattered about Crouch was that he knew your secrets before you did and would use them, without restraint, without compassion, to whatever end he chose. Among people who valued their own beauty and comfort and amusement above all else, he was ugly and uncomfortable and no fun at all. He was universally hated and universally tolerated because, for all his faults, he was _so useful to know_. No great intrigue could get it’s start without Crouch’s hand on it. No scandal reached infamy without his guiding hand. And that was _before_ he’d found his charming, changeling daughter.

A daughter who shivered before him in her own apartment.

“Do you want to come in?” Zephyr asked uncertainly. He looked over her shoulder into the wrecked apartment. “No. This will be brief.”

She cringed.

“You have an invitation to Spider’s party in a fortnight. Greyling Harrow will be there representing the Lacuna. Make sure he gets this,” and so saying, Crouch handed her a carved box of ebony wood. Her palm itched holding it. She knew not to look inside.

“Who should he think is the sender?” 

Crouch hemmed a bit, then said, “it _would_ be useful if he thought it came by way of Riven’s Hive, but not necessary. The important part is that he _gets_ it.”

Zephyr nodded and Crouch stepped back. He would leave, now that he’d given her a job, and she would be free to spend the rest of the day as she wished. Probably the whole week, if her part in the plan was two weeks away. She wouldn’t see him again until it was all finished and she got her cut. Or until he sought her out for other work, and then he would leave as quickly as he was doing now. He was a terrible father, a terrible person. Zephyr _knew_ this. But he was all she had, so-

“Buttercup came to see me,” she said, the words bursting forth like a damn break. Crouch stopped and looked at her. The weight of his gaze was heavy, as always, but he revealed nothing of himself. He just waited. Zephyr strained to fill the silence left by her outburst. She couldn’t just stop once she’d begun. “A few days ago. He was waiting in the lobby. Is everything...,” she trailed off. It was misery, talking now. She didn’t even know what she wanted to ask. _Surely_ he already knew Buttercup had been there, surely he’d tell her if there was danger. She wished she hadn’t said anything at all. “Should I be concerned? About him. And them. Is there something more I need to know?”

Crouch finally removed his gaze from her. He hummed to himself as he examined the hallway. The tall ceiling and narrow floor, the weak doors and pressing walls. An old unreliable elevator and dim stairwell a long way down the passage. When he was done, he looked at her again, and this time, Zephyr thought she might’ve seen an emotion cross his face.

“If you see him again, kill him. It will be a kindness.” Zephyr felt her breath hitch. He turned away and walked towards the elevator. “You might think about finding a new apartment, too. Just for a little while. You don’t want the wrong people to know where to find you.”

****

The next few days were spent laying low at Cass’s place. It was a double wide trailer, tucked away on a forgotten utility road in the Shenandoah National Park. It was cozy, less impersonal than a hotel room, but still a bit… spare. This was just a place to stay, like she’d said on the road. Quiet and comfortable and out of the way from whatever might be chasing her. No magic hid it. No magic needed to when the forest itself clung so ferociously to secrets. Sabel felt herself unclench as she staggered through the front door.

She had slept that whole first day when they arrived. All of them did, save Garrett, who’d vanished in the night, leaving behind the truck with Sabel’s deliveries, and a note that promised a swift return and phone number for emergencies. On the second day, she got up bright and early and called her customers. There was the delay to explain, timetables to rework, pickups to reschedule entirely, and no shortage of shop talk and gossip to indulge in to keep her clients amused and assuaged. Cass and J were similarly occupied, calling vendors and friends and whoever all ran the Markets. From what she overheard in between her own calls, there were still more fires to put, both literally and figuratively. Sabel didn’t envy them the headache.

By the third day, Sabel was still at work with her maps and GPS. She had the rough draft of a new route and schedule. But there were a few dicey roads involved that she was waiting to hear back about before committing to the route. She was waiting for Garrett, too. So she lingered over her maps and listened to Cass’s calls. Cass, who was busily building a picture of just what the hell was going on.

J, aside from the first day when he’d made calls with Cass, had mostly dedicated himself to making sure they remembered to eat. In between his own work, of course. Sabel didn’t know what he did for a living, but J had set himself up in a corner of the den with a laptop and headset, and every hour or so, he would settle in and speak a lot of languages that weren’t English. And when he wasn’t doing that, or helping Cass, or making lunch, he would sit near Sabel and chat.

Sabel was curious, she could admit it. About him. About Cass. About what the plan was to deal with the Volturi and this other new threat. But not curious enough to involve herself. She had been part of a story once, with mysteries and rising stakes and heroic sacrifices. She remembered it all too well. She didn’t need to be part of another.

 _Except_ , Sabel acknowledged grimly, _she kind of was_. The thing with Cass and the Market’s involved her because that was how she made her living. She _could_ ignore it, but to do so would be like cutting her nose to spite her face. She liked to think she was less self-destructive than that these days. And whatever she was helping Garrett with, that was becoming a story, too. So, she was involved, whether she liked it or not. That meant she had to pay attention. Just enough to stay alive, to avoid the conflict. If she played her cards right, she could slide through this as a tertiary character.

Cass ended her latest call and sank into the chair beside Sabel with a groan.

“So?” Sabel asked eagerly. “Do we know who the flamethrower people were?”

Cass groaned and flopped into the chair beside Sabel at the kitchen table. “Fey war. Another goddamned fey war.”

J, seated across from them, raised an eyebrow. “I hadn’t realized the gentry were using weapons from human action movies now.”

Cass let out an inarticulate sound, not quite a scream, not quite a groan, but entirely livid and overwhelmed. When the sound ended, she just said, “Not gentry. The Restored.”

 _Oh._ And with that, the mood around the table plummeted. Sabel felt a rush of pity and dismay. No one, absolutely no one, could deny that the Restored had been dealt a bad hand. Even the fey, stubborn and uncaring as they were, had begun to admit that it was a bad idea. Many courts had stopped taking changelings at all. But it was too little too late. 

The Restored had, for a long time, been called The Returned. Human children who had once been spirited away for years upon years upon years. And then returned to a world that had forgotten them and which they themselves scorned. Sabel didn’t know a single court that hadn’t indulged in changelings at some point in their history. And that was an even greater problem when there were so many. A single court may take a human child every year or two and think it made no difference. Humans had so many children, after all, and they died so often. The ones they took wouldn’t be missed.

But courts warred and broke apart and reformed, each with their own ideas on changelings, and no one kept track of how many children they took. No one noticed how much longer people were living. No one noticed when the Returned started finding each other. Eventually, the Returned became the Restored; they weren’t lying, and they weren’t crazy, they had just been sent back to their homes after a long visit. But they had been sent back broken and cut apart. Pieces of them were still lost in Faery and other dark corners of the world. And they would never be fully healed, fully _restored_ , until they scoured the magical world and killed all lands but their own.

It was a sort of scorched-earth revenge plot that Sabel could theoretically sympathize with. But their violence that night wasn’t theory. And sympathy notwithstanding, she made her living off the Markets and at least some fey business, so she was also in their crosshairs.

J sighed and Sabel watched as his whole body seemed to sink into his chair under the added weight of this discovery. “Huh. Well, no one can say this hasn’t been coming.”

“But why did they attack the Volturi and not us?” Sabel asked. “I thought we were _all_ on their shit list: the Unaffiliated and other communities for not helping them and the Volturi for, well, being themselves.”

Cass beat her head against the table once and sat up. “They are. _We_ are. But there are factions within the Restored, apparently, so – ugh, where do I start?” She heaved a sign and closed her eyes, visibly thinking about the tangled threads of story she’d gathered. Then, “so, the Volturi. We know about them. Big, bad, they have a lot of resources and so far have no ties to nor love for the fey. They’re a supernatural community, but they’ve been so uninvolved with the gentry, and everyone else for that matter, that some of the Restored are willing to give them a pass. And others among the Restored are _also_ willing to give them a pass, provided they share power.” Sabel felt her face twist in a grimace and Cass pointed at her. “Yes. That. That’s the face I made too. Recently, a person or persons went to them to work something out. A business deal or a treaty. I don’t know the specifics but suffice to say no deal was struck.”

“And the… _delegates_ are no more, I assume?” J asked.

Cass nodded. “The Volturi have joined us on the shit list. Now as to why they didn’t attack _us_. It’s not a secret that the Restored have their own booths at some of the Markets. We’ve even hosted their support meetings, provided they don’t start trouble. God, why wouldn’t we? The whole _reason_ behind the Unaffiliated is to avoid all that court and coven bullshit!”

“Magical Switzerland,” Sabel summarized, nodding. Across from her, J laughed. Sabel had told Garrett about the Unaffiliated, but she had given him the public relations pitch. The Unaffiliated’s neutrality was their biggest selling point. It was also their biggest criticism. Oh, you could stay for as long as you wanted if you played nice. Followed the rules. It was a simplicity that was hard to find once you crossed the line into magic as a lifestyle choice. The freedom to make your way and not owe anyone fealty or a tithe. But the price of that was a constant underpinning of violence. Anyone could do anything to you without consequence, so long as they were sneaky about it, and your only protect was your own wits, strength, and whatever connections you’d made. There was a lot to complain about, even without being as shit-outta-luck as the Restored.

“It’s not a perfect system,” Cass admitted. “Neutrality can be it’s own sickness, sometimes. The Restored may hate us for not doing enough, and that’s their right. But we haven’t done _nothing_ , and they know that. And plenty of us have been burned by the courts or other cryptids,” she said, and a dark look crossed her face. “They know _that_ , too.”

“This was a recruiting attempt?” J asked incredulously.

“Maybe?” Cass shrugged. “If nothing else, it’s a sign that they hate vampires more than us right now. I’ll take it. Who knows, if we’re lucky, maybe they’ll wipe each other out and forget about us.” Cass dropped into a morose silence at her own declaration. Then, “Does anyone want a drink? I’m getting a drink.”

She got up from the table and started rummaging through a cabinet in the kitchen. Sabel and J stayed seated, both lost in thought. J seemed to be chewing over something carefully. After a minute or two, Sabel poked his shoulder to get his attention and looked at him with exaggerated curiosity. Their eyes met, brown to dark grey. Sabel suddenly wondered how old he was.

J held her gaze while he spoke to Cass. “Mutually assured destruction seems both a tad too morbid and too optimistic for you, Cassie. What gives?”

“ _What gives_?” came a growl from the kitchen. “What _gives,_ Jeremy, is that I’ve spent decades building a community that’s supposed to be free of this bullshit and now there are two volatile enemies at our throat, who are only temporarily distracted with each other.” A pause while the blender roared, crushing ice and whirling who knew what into something drinkable. The crunch and crush smoothed out into a dull, even hum and then she was pouring and ranting again. “And at any minute, Jonathan, one or twenty or, hell, even _all_ of the fey courts on this continent could decide to join in just to get their hands on what the Unaffiliated have carved out for ourselves. I’m _pissed_ , is what gives, Jose. My life’s work at stake and my community, my _friends_ , are being threatened.” She slammed a tray of margaritas down in front of them. “Just because _you_ might survive the heat death of the universe doesn’t mean that everyone will, or that I’m not worried about them.” Cass sat and drank. Sabel had never seen her this ruffled before.

J, meanwhile, looked at Cass appraisingly. “…Are you done?”

She met his gaze, cocked a brow, and said, “Jerome.” They smiled at each other, then, and the tension broke. J and Sabel grabbed their own glasses. Snacks made their way to the table as well, and while they still talked about the attack and what was going to happen next, it was done without any expectation of finding a solution. The workday, such as it was, was over.

Garrett came back the next morning. He brought Sabel’s past with him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience and continued readership! My unstable mental health tripped on a banana peel down some stairs and fell into a well around late August/September and I've only just left the well. Next chapter is about half written already, so an update should be coming sooner than 5 months.


End file.
